Police Hand Over Recovered 7,395 Arms, Ammunition To Federal Gov’t

The inspector-general of police, IGP Usman Baba, has supervised the handing-over of recovered arms, ammunition and cartridges totalling over 7,395 to the National Centre for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons (NCCSALW).

The items included 3,980 arms of different calibres and were handed over to the NCCSALW at the Force Headquarters in Abuja on Thursday.

The arms comprised 265 automatic rifles; 146 pump action guns; 1,909 locally fabricated pistols; 1,500 locally made single barrel guns; 98 locally made double barrel guns; 46 General Purpose Machine Guns (GPMGs); 16 locally made rocket launchers; two locally made Anti-Aircraft (AA) guns, and seven Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPGs).

Also, 2,358 assorted calibres of ammunition and 1,057 assorted cartridges were equally handed over to the agency.

Speaking at the event, the IGP said that the exercise was part of the efforts of the Nigeria Police Force, as a lead agency in internal security management, to curb the threat of the proliferation of illegal Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW) trafficking within the country.

He similarly stated that the Nigeria Police Force under his leadership has been evaluating and re-evaluating its operational strategies while strengthening institutional capacity in relation to the generation of actionable intelligence and the conduct of special operations directed at proactively checkmating the menace of arms proliferation.

Also speaking at the function, the coordinator of the NCCSALW, Abba Dikko, said the agency will assess the guns and reissue the serviceable ones to the Police for use for the good of the country.

He also warned those involved in smuggling weapons to the country to desist henceforth as the security agencies will always track and retrieve them and use them to hunt the importers and smugglers.