The Nigeria Police Force has commenced a nationwide programme to recover illegal arms ahead of the 2027 general elections.

The Inspector-General of Police (I-G), Olatunji Disu, disclosed this on Thursday in Abuja.

Mr Disu spoke during a courtesy visit by a delegation from the National Centre for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons (NCCSALW), led by its Director-General, Johnson Kokumo.

The I-G said there was a need for advocacy on the 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 surrender and recovery of weapons would become more tenacious as the elections drew closer.

According to him, the focus of the operation is to develop a programme on the need for people to surrender illegal arms in their possession.

Mr Disu, therefore, solicited partnership with the NCCSALW to jointly execute the programme targeted at the voluntary surrender of illegal arms in unauthorised hands.

The I-G pledged the commitment of the Nigeria Police Force to continue strengthening collaboration with the NCCSALW in weapon recovery.

He said the Nigeria Police Force, being the country’s leading internal security agency with a presence across the nation, had greater access to the people than any other government agency.

Mr Disu said the contribution of the Nigeria Police Force to arms recovery was enormous, given its access to all kinds of arms, whether 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 aimed at identifying ways to strengthen institutional collaboration and chart a path for joint action against the proliferation of illicit arms between the two organisations.

He said it was incontrovertible that the proliferation of illicit arms and ammunition, terrorism, violent extremism, and crime were intertwined.

According to him, it is the availability of illicit weapons that encourages violent extremism and all forms of violent crime.

“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.

Mr Kokumo said the centre had destroyed more than 16,000 obsolete, decommissioned, and 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)