As part of its plans to checkmate the proliferation of illegal arms, the Nigeria Police on Thursday disclosed that 3,980 arms of different calibers have been recovered in different parts of the country.
Nigeriacrime.com gathered that the recovered arms included: 265 automatic rifles; 146 pump action guns; 1,909 locally fabricated pistols, 1,500 locally made single barrel guns and 98 locally made double barrel guns.
Others were: 46 General Purpose Machine Guns, GPMGs, 16 locally made rocket launchers, two locally made Anti-Aircraft guns and seven Rocket Propelled Grenades.
In addition, were 2,358 assorted calibres of ammunition and 1,057 assorted cartridges.
Over 300 were recovered in Lagos alone.
They were handed over to the National Centre for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons, NCCSALW under the supervision of the Inspector-General of Police, IGP Alkali Baba, in Abuja.
The IGP explained that the exercise was part of the efforts of the Nigeria Police Force, as a lead agency in internal security management, to curb the threat of the proliferation of illegal Small Arms and Light Weapons trafficking within the country.
He further stated that the Nigeria Police Force under his leadership “has been evaluating and re-evaluating its operational strategies while strengthening institutional capacity in relation to the generation of actionable intelligence and the conduct of special operations directed at proactively checkmating the menace of arms proliferation”.
He therefore, directed Commissioners of Police in charge of State Police Commands and their supervisory Assistant Inspectors-General of Police, including Heads of Tactical Units of the Force, to aggressively sustain the mop-up exercise to actualise the mandate of the Federal Government on the proliferation of small arms and light weapons.
He also reaffirmed that the Police under his watch would continue to partner with the NCCSALW, to achieve the mandate of the Federal Government on the control of the proliferation of small arms and light weapons in the country.