The House of Representatives has tasked its Ad Hoc Committee on Weapons with investigating the alleged 178,459 weapons reported missing by the Federation’s Auditor General, Adolphus Agughu.
According to the 2019 audit report, weapons including AK-47 rifles and other assorted rifles and pistols from different formations across the country could not be accounted for by the Nigerian Police.
The House resolved to investigate the missing weapons following a motion tabled by Deputy Minority Leader Toby Okechukwu (PDP, Enugu) on Thursday during plenary.
Leading the discussion, Mr. Okechukwu lamented the police’s poor record-keeping on weapons and ammunition.
He said the missing weapons could be related to increased insecurity across the country.
Citing the audit report, Mr. Okechukwu said that “the value of the lost firearms could not be determined because no documents related to their acquisition cost were submitted for examination.
“The high command of the police failed to keep a register of unusable and expired firearms and ammunition, due to the breach of the internal control system of the Nigerian Police”.
To highlight poor record-keeping, Mr. Okechukwu referred to the Abuja Police Mobile Force (PMF) Squad, where police records and audit reports contradict each other.
“Records obtained from the force weaponry at Force Headquarters showed that Police Mobile Force (PMF) Squad 21, Abuja did not report a single case of missing firearm, while the timeline of weapons missing weapons obtained from the same PMF showed a total of 46 missing weapons between the year 2000 and February 2019,” he said.
Speaking in support of the motion, Deputy Spokesperson Idris Wase (APC, Plateau) said the investigation will reveal much.
However, he argued that there is no need to set up an ad hoc committee to investigate the matter, but that an existing committee investigating weapons should be tasked with the investigation.
Accordingly, the investigation was entrusted to the Committee Investigating Acquisition of Arms chaired by Abubakar Fulata (APC, Jigawa).
In addition, the Inspector General of Police, Usman Akali, was mandated to take urgent action to arrest those responsible for depleting the force’s arsenal.