Johnson Kokumo, the national coordinator of the National Centre for Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons (NCCSALW), has urged the Nigeria Police to provide the centre with a database of recovered illicit arms.

Mr Kokumo, retired Deputy Inspector-General of Police (DIG), made the request when he led the centre’s management team on a courtesy visit to the Inspector-General of Police, Kayode EgbetokunWe, on Friday in Abuja.

He said the visit was to solicit more support and collaboration in intelligence sharing, adding that the police were highly dependable regarding intelligence gathering.

“We are equally seeking the support and understanding of the Inspector General of Police in the area of generating national data, and of course, analysis of this data for planning for the control of proliferation of small arms and light weapons.

“We know too well that the Nigerian Police force has records of recovered arms and ammunition across the federation.

“I want to seize this opportunity to make it known to the police that the centre has a national data centre where we collate data recovered by all agencies of governments.

“We don’t only come up with figures of recovered arms from various agencies of government; we go further to investigate the sources of these weapons,” he said.

Mr Kokumo said the NCCSALW was more interested in knowing the source of the guns that the criminals used to commit crimes, urging the police to always involve the centre whenever its investigators come in contact with small arms during their investigation.

According to him, the centre can trace the company or manufacturer of weapons and trace to whom the manufacturing company sold such weapons.

The coordinator commended the police for the support it had extended to the centre since its creation in 2021 in the area of manpower enforcement support.

In his response, the Inspector-General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, said the police had no choice but to continue to work with NCCSALW to deliver on its mandate.

Mr Egbetokun assured the coordinator of the police’s commitment to continuing to cooperate with the centre, adding that they had realised that NCCSALW played an important role in curbing the incidences of violent crime in Nigeria.

“We all know that violent crimes in Nigeria are being driven by the proliferation of small arms and light weapons.

“It is the result of illicit transactions in arms and light weapons that are actually aiding banditry, kidnapping, armed robbery and even terrorism.

“I want to assure you that you should always count on us, even in the area of training,” Mr Egbetokun said.

(NAN)