Police Hand Recovered 7,395 Arms, Ammunition Over To Federal Govt

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

The items include 3,980 arms of different calibres. They were handed over to the centre at the force headquarters in Abuja on Thursday, according to the police authorities.

The arms comprise 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.

At the event, the IGP said the exercise is 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 said 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 checking the menace of arms proliferation.

The coordinator of the NCCSALW, Abba Dikko said the agency would assess the guns and reissue the serviceable ones to the Police for use for the good of the country.

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