By PAMELA EBOH, Awka

Executive Director of Rule of Law and Accountability Advocacy Centre (RULAAC), Okechukwu Nwanguma, has described as scandalous and scary, the Auditor-General’s report to the National Assembly on missing arms and ammunition from Police armoury.

The Auditor-General had in the report said that 178,459 arms and ammunition missing from the Police armoury was a result of a 12year-long insurgency which was powered by arms carted by terrorists after attacks on military bases.

Nwanguma, in a recent statement, regretted that more than two weeks after the revelation hit the headlines and was still trending, neither the Nigeria Police authorities, the Minister of Police Affairs, nor the President were yet to make any comment by way of demanding explanation from the Police hierarchy.

He said that though Nigerians were used to scandalous stories that hardly scandalise people in government, that Nigerians deserve to know because it was about their resources, safety and security.

“Six years after Buhari became President and having promised to lead the fight against insecurity from the front, being a retired military General, need we look further to understand why insecurity continues to grow and appears intractable?

“When we read reports about millions of arms in wide circulation and in the hands of non-state actors, including bandits, terrorists, kidnappers and armed robbers, when we read about so-called “unknown gunmen” and attacks on Police Stations and other government infrastructure and the lack of capacity by the Police to defend their stations and themselves, let alone defend fellow citizens, do we still wonder why?

“These troubling reports about the disappearance of arms and ammunition from Police armoury and the failure of the police to explain or account for these missing arms warrant an emergency meeting of the Nigeria Police Council.

“The Police Council is composed of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as chairman, the Chairman of the Police Service Commission, the incumbent Inspector General of Police, and the governors of all the states and the FCT.

“Apart from advising the President on the appointment of a new Inspector General of Police when there is vacancy, the Council is also mandated under both the Constitution and the Police Act to receive reports on the state of security across the country and to advice the President on ways of tackling insecurity,” Nwanguma said.

While saying that it was not on record that the Police Council has never met under the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, the RULAAC boss stressed that the disappearance of Police arms and ammunition borders on safety and security, corruption, professional competence, rule of law and governance.

According to him, the action points to a likely complicity in crimes by those charged with the responsibility of keeping Police arms.

“The insecurity that continues to ravage the country leading to daily attacks and killings of Nigerians in hundreds across the states, displacement and impoverishment of Nigerians, and in particular these scandalous revelations about unexplained disappearance of arms, warrant an urgent meeting of the Police Council,” he suggested, calling on the President to address Nigerians on this scandalous revelation.

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