OSBC
29 September 2021
To help stem the tide of insecurity and the proliferation of arms and ammunition in Nigeria, erecting the Berlin kind of wall between Nigeria and her neighbours is urgently required, the Nigerian Navy has said.
The Navy represented by Commodore Jemila Ababkar Sadiq stated this on Monday, while participating in a public hearing on four security related bills organised by the House of Representatives Committee on National Security and Intelligence in Abuja.
Commodore Sadiq said most of Nigeria’s neighbours lack basic armouries to store and keep proper record of the arms donated to them by foreign governments or regional bodies to fight insurgency.
The Navy also canvassed for the removal of the Foreign Affairs Ministry from the board of the proposed National Commission for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons, and replace it with the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Also speaking at the hearing, the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) expressed the need to regulate the activities of local blacksmiths who it said have become sophisticated in the art of fabricating firearms.
Represented by Air Commodore F. G. Okoyi, the DIA commended the proposed establishment of the commission, saying that it “would go a long way to ensure the coordination of concrete measures for effective control of small arms and light weapons in the country.”
