A former Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Lt.-Gen. Abdulrahman Dambazau (retd) has said non-state actors in the Sahel region possess 14 million firearms.
Dambazzau, the Nigerian Ambassador designate to China, made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Tuesday.
He said of the number, 11 million are within the stretch of West Africa towards Central Africa, adding that insecurity in Nigeria was a complex and regional problem that required a regional approach to address it.
According to Dambazau, the problem was not unique to Nigeria, saying a major contributor to insecurity in the country and the Sahel region was the proliferation of firearms, and a partnership was therefore needed to fight it.
According to him, the issue of proliferation of firearms within the Sahel, as of the last count, the statistics shows that there are over 14 million firearms in the hands of non-state actors in the region.
“Out of this 14 million, about 11 million are within the stretch of West Africa towards Central Africa.
“You can guess that because of the activities of non-state actors within Nigeria and because of our population, quite a lot of these firearms are also in Nigeria. And these firearms are not manufactured here. In fact, they are not manufactured in Africa.
“They come from somewhere. So you need a partnership to deal with that proliferation, but first, you have to identify the source and block the source.
“Again to be able to sweep the excess firearms in the hands of non-state actors will require some technology, which we may not have.”
The ambassador designate also said that cross-border issues were another major contributor to insecurity in the country as Nigeria was a signatory of the ECOWAS protocol on the movement of people, goods, and services.
“Although this movement, a lot of things are happening. We have a border, for instance, with Niger of 1,400 kilometres. It’s impossible for us to physically protect this border. So what do we do?
“We need to fill the gap. So we need modern technology, high-tech, to fill the gap.”
