THE Nigeria Police Force (NPF) has responded to allegations that it could not account for 3,907 firearms.
The Senate Committee on Public Accounts had on Tuesday, February 11, raised concerns over the disappearance of 3,907 weapons from various police formations in the country in 2020 as contained in the Auditor-General’s Report for the year.
The committee also revisited the case of another 178,459 firearms which were reportedly missing, including 88,078 AK-47 rifles from police inventory.
Feilding questions from the committee on the audit queries, the inspector-general of police (IGP), Kayode Egbetokun, represented by an assistant inspector-general of police (AIG), Sulaiman Abdul, attempted to convince the committee to move the meeting to a closed-door session, but the committee declined.
The lawmakers insisted that the police explain how such a high number of firearms could go missing without accountability. They also warned that the ammunition might have fallen into the wrong hands, a situation, they claimed, had increased criminal activities across the country.
During the session, the senator representing Edo North, Adams Oshiomhole, asked about the whereabouts of the arms.
The senator recommended that the police take full responsibility for tracking them and bringing those responsible to justice.
Another senator representing Anambra Central, Victor Umeh, alleged that some police officers entrusted with securing armouries were instead selling arms to criminals.
Meanwhile, in a statement on Thursday, February 13, signed by the police spokesperson, Muyiwa Adejobi, the Force said some of the weapons might have been lost during attacks on police posts and personnel during civil unrest.
The Force said substantial efforts had been made to recover and account for arms, adding that they were not as high as reported.
“These allegations are misleading and inaccurate. The Force wishes to clarify that this report appears to stem from an assessment of the report by the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation, AuGF, dating back to 2019, likely reflecting records compiled prior to the current inspector-general of police’s tenure,” the police said.
The Force said it also noted that when auditors conducted visits to police armouries, they might not find all arms present due to the issuance of weapons to personnel for operational purposes, many spanning months depending on the nature of such operations.
It added that this had led to misconceptions regarding the accuracy of audit reports.
The ICIR reports that missing firearms and ammunition has been a recurring issue in Nigeria.
In 2022, The ICIR reported that theft and illegal sales of firearms and ammunition by police officers to criminals were the primary reasons responsible for the missing 178,459 firearms and ammunition across police commands, zonal formations, and other departments of the Force.
The missing weapons were contained in a report released from the Office of the Auditor-General on non-compliance/internal control weakness issues across ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs) of federal and state governments.
A reporter with the ICIR
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