The House of Representatives on Thursday the 20th of January has resolved to institute investigation into the 178,449 arms and ammunition allegedly missing from the armory of the Nigeria Police Force ( NPF).

This is coming after Hon. Toby Okechukwu, the Enugu Representative who represents Aninri/Awgu/Oji River Federal Constituency, and Deputy Minority Leader moved a motion titled “Need to investigate alleged missing firearms and ammunition of the Nigeria Police”, in which he informed the house that the 2019 audit report of the Office of the Auditor General of the Federation, as reported by national dailies, indicated that about 178,459 different arms and ammunition, belonging to the police are allegedly missing.

Stating that the audit of Arms Movement Register, Monthly Returns of Arms and Ammunition and Ammunition Register at the Armoury Section reveals that a total number of lost firearms as at December 2018 stood at 178,459 pieces, he said “Out of this number, 88,078 were AK-47 rifles, 3,907 assorted rifles and pistols across different police formations, which could not be accounted for as at January 2020.”

He explained that the value of the allegedly missing firearms could not be ascertained, as documents relating to the costs of their acquisition were never presented for examination.

He said that findings in the report indicated that “the police high command failed to keep record of unserviceable and expired firearms and ammunition; owing to non-compliance to the internal control system of the Nigeria Police Force”.

“Records of the total number of unserviceable firearms were not produced for examinations and there were no returns from Adamawa State Command, Police Mobile Force (PMF) 46, 56, 64 and 68 for the period under review”, he explained.

The lawmaker said it was alarming that “duly completed Treasury Form 146 (loss of stores) were not presented. Records obtained from force armament at Force Headquarters showed 21 Police Mobile Force (PMF) Squadron, Abuja did not report a single case of missing firearm, whereas schedule of missing arms obtained from the same PMF showed a total of 46 missing arms between year 2000 and February 2019.”

Okechukwu expressed serious concern that “the missing arms could have found their ways into the wrong hands”, hence the spike in kidnapping, banditry and other violent crimes across the country.

Meanwhile, the Ad Hoc Committee has four weeks to complete the investigation and report back to the House for further legislative actions on the matter.

The investigation, which is to be carried out by a House Ad Hoc Committee due to the seriousness and urgency of the matter, is to establish the truth in the allegation as well as conduct
due diligence of the control processes of the armoury of the police.

The House has equally charged the Inspector General of Police ( IGP), Mr. Usman Baba Alkali, to take immediate steps to apprehend those responsible for the alleged depletion of the police armoury.