The National Commission Against the Proliferation of Arms, Light Weapons and Pipeline vandalism has said that in the next 100 days, it will embark on a massive campaign to clampdown on sellers, importers and hoarders of light weapons, ammunition and chemical weapons.
The Acting Director General of the Commission, Dr Otunba Adejare Adegbenro stated this while speaking with journalists shortly after he was appointed as the new boss of the Commission.
Furthermore, he said the Commission will also embark on the creation of 7000 jobs in each state of the federation as its own contribution towards curbing youth restiveness.
“Our core mandate is to stop the importation of illegal arms, ammunition and chemical weapons. It means that we have to go down even to the fishermen in each state from the lowest level to the highest level to make sure that we comply with the ECOWAS treaty which Nigeria is a signatory to in 2006, to make sure that all these ammunitions coming into our country through the borders, seas are stopped, we will also ensure that we totally try our best to work with other agencies to know where these leakages are coming from.
“So, we are going to make sure that in the next 100 days, we make a lot of seizures from importers, sellers, hoarders that hold all these weapons, we are going to go on a massive campaign to clampdown and work with other agencies to make sure we achieve this. I will not say it is going to be an easy job, but we will succeed because I am a go-getter”, he noted.
Adegbenro said the Commission is in tandem with the ECOWAS Commission which is to battle against the importation of illegal arms ammunition, small weapons and chemical weapons.
“The Commission is meant to work together with other ECOWAS member states. We are suffering insecurity in Nigeria because of this illegal importation of arms and ammunition which in collaboration with other states in ECOWAS to work together to minimise or eradicate the importation of these weapons.
“It will be nice for the new government to embrace us, and give us all the necessary backing including the National Assembly.
We have a lot of youths out there yearning for jobs, in the 100 days of our new president, we want to embark on making sure that we employ at least 7000 youths for each state in Nigeria, that takes unemployment out of the window”, he added.
He, therefore, prayed that the president will put a quick assent to the Commission’s bill to give them so that they can deliver on their mandate.
Source: NIGERIA TRIBUNE
