Nigeria’s House of Representatives has empowered an Ad hoc Committee on Arms to investigate alleged 178,459 arms reported to be missing by the Auditor-General of the Federation, Adolphus Aghughu.
According to the 2019 audit report, well over 80,000 units of AK-47 rifles and other assorted rifles and pistols from different formations nationwide could not be accounted for.
A motion moved on Thursday by the Deputy Minority Leader, Toby Okechukwu, (PDP, Enugu), instigated the House probe.
Leading the debate, Hon. Okechukwu expressed worry that the missing arms could be connected with the spike in insecurity across the country.
“The police high command failed to keep record of unserviceable and expired firearms and ammunition— owing to non-compliance to the internal control system of the Nigeria Police Force.”
According to Hon. Okechukwu the Police Mobile Force (PMF) Squadron, Abuja, reveals that records of police and audit reports contradict themselves.
“Records obtained from force armament at Force Headquarters showed 21 Police Mobile Force (PMF) Squadron, Abuja, did not report a single case of missing firearm, whereas schedule of missing arms obtained from the same PMF showed a total of 46 missing arms between the year 2000 and February 2019,” he said.
He, however, argued that there is no need to set up an ad hoc committee to investigate the matter, rather an existing committee investigating arms should be charged with the probe.
