The Nigeria Police Force has commenced a nationwide programme to recover illegal arms ahead of the 2027 general elections.
The Inspector-General of Police, IGP Olatunji Disu, disclosed this on Thursday in Abuja.
Disu was speaking during a courtesy visit by a delegation from the National Center for the Control of Small Arms & Light Weapons led by its Director-General, Mr Johnson Kokumo.
The I-G said there was a need for advocacy on civil disarmament of people with illegal arms in their possession and to let the public know that security was a collective responsibility.
“We need to let them know that it is not us putting on uniform that are only security operatives. Policing is a collective responsibility.
“It is important to create the awareness that anybody carrying illegal arms around is going to use it on another citizen of the country.
“So, there is need for us to carry out civil disarmament and all hands must be on deck to ensure the success of the exercise.
“Our officers have been told to start this, especially as we are approaching the elections and we have started recovering illegal arms in possession of people who are not supposed to have it,” he said.
He said the operation for the surrendering and recovery of weapons would be more tenacious as the elections get closer.
According to him, the focus of the operation is to come up with a programme on the need for people to surrender illegal arms in their possession.
Disu, therefore, solicited for partnership with the NCCSALW to jointly execute the programme targeted at voluntary submission of illegal arms in unauthorised hands.
The I-G pledged the commitment of the Nigeria Police Force to continue to strengthen collaboration with NCCSALW in weapon recovery.
He said the Nigerian Police Force, being the number one internal security agent, with presence across the nation had access to the people more than any other agent of the government.
Disu said the contribution of the Nigeria Police Force in arms recovery was enormous in view of the access it has to all kinds of arms, illicit, manufactured or stolen.
“We share this mission of arms recovery together because we cannot continue to have great number of recovered arms being circulated back into the society.
“Every arm discovered, every arm destroyed will make my job easier. So it’s a joint operation, it’s a joint mission that we have,” he said.
Earlier, the NCCSALW boss said the visit was to identify ways to strengthen institutional collaboration and chart a path for joint action against illicit arms proliferation between the two organisations.
He said it was incontrovertible that proliferation of illicit arms and ammunition, terrorism, violent extremism and crimes across were intertwined.
According to him, it is the availability of illicit weapons that encourages violent extremism and all forms of violent crimes across the board.
“It is in realisation of this that ECOWAS came together by way of an agreement, crafted a convention to which Nigeria remains a signatory.
“A convention for each member state to create an agency of government, either by way of commission, department, or centre, to fight proliferation of illicit arms and ammunition in each member state,” he said.
Kokumo said the centre had destroyed over 16,000 obsolete, decommissioned, unserviceable weapons since its inception.
He said the Nigeria Police Force had supplied a total of 11,907 illicit, unserviceable, obsolete, and decommissioned weapons to the centre.
“Out of this, given to the centre by the Nigerian Police Force, we have 8,438 automatic weapons and 3,489 locally fabricated weapons,” he said.
NAN