Customs, Security Adviser, Stakeholders Disagree over Arms Control Agency

Sunday Aborisade in Abuja

Stakeholders yesterday  disagree over certain provisions of a bill for an act to provide for the establishment of the national centre for the coordination and control of the proliferation of small and light weapons in Nigeria

They spoke at a one-day public hearing organised by the Senate Committee on National Security and Intelligence.

While the Office of the National Security Adviser (NSA) and the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) picked holes in the bill, other stakeholders threw their full weight behind the proposed legislation.

Declaring the session open, the Senate President,  Ahmad Lawan, linked challenges associated with small and light weapons to crises in the Sahel.

Lawan, who was represented by the  Senate Deputy Minority Leader, Senator Shuaibu Lau ( PDP Taraba North) , explained that the proliferation of weapons had triggered dangerous act of terrorism. Lawan noted that the development precipitated the gathering of stakeholders on National Security and Intelligence.

He noted that the essence of the Institutions was to control the menace of terrorism, kidnapping, armed robbery, banditry among others.

The Director, Legal Services of the National Centre for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons (NCCSALW), Chioma Onuegbu, said that proliferation of weapons posed a threat to peace and security.

She added that there was no better time to pass the bill than now.

  Head of ECOWAS National Office at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Yakubu Dadu, said: “We are in support of the bill”.

    He said the bill was linked to ECOWAS convention.

He pointed out that it was only Nigeria that had not established a centre to curb proliferation of small and light weapons in the sub region.

 He said: “ECOWAS is looking up to Nigeria, we have suffered from consequences of small and light arms proliferation”.

 However, the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), represented by its Assistant Controller General of Customs, Usman Dakingari, was of the view that if  the land borders were blocked, culprits would be easily apprehended .

 He also called for the establishment of National Data base for weapons, saying Nigeria Customs was ready to synergize with other security agencies to curb the menace.

 Similarly, the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) also kicked against the bill saying “the proposed centre should be domiciled at the office of NSA.

Part of the NSA memo read: “If transferred into a commission, it will be made up of pure civilian”.

A member of the committee, Senator Francis Fadahunsi (APC Osun East) punctured the submission of the Office of the NSA.

    He said: “The NSA is yet to do his work, this bill started during President Olusegun Obasanjo when we called forensic into the Army, Police, we discovered 178,000 arms and ammunition lost to the criminals.”

 In a separate submission, the Director General of National Taskforce Prohibition of Illegal, Importation/Smuggling of Arms, Ammunition, Light Weapons, Chemical Weapons and Pipeline Vandalism, Dr. Baba Mohammed backed the establishment of the commission.

  He cited Liberia, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Cote’divoire, Guinea as countries which had established the Commission to stop killings, kidnappings, banditry.

 In his closing remarks, the chairman of the committee, Senator Ibrahim Gobir (APC Sokoto East) , noted that the committee would collate all the presentations and do the needful.

  He said, “We will come out with a decision that everybody will be Happy with .

 Ours is to make sure Insecurity becomes  a thing of the past in Nigeria.”