The senator representing Ondo Central, Patrick Ayo Akinyelure, has said the worsening insecurity in Nigeria will end within six months, if President Muhammadu Buhari assents to the National Commission Against the Proliferation of Small Arms and Light Weapons (Establishment) Bill, 2022.
The Bill seeks to establish the National Commission for the Coordination and Control of the Proliferation of Small Arms and Light Weapons.
The commission is also to supervise the National Task Force of Nigeria (NATFORCE) to Combat Illegal Importation of Goods, Small Arms, Ammunition and Light Weapons.
The Senate passed the Bill last week, following the consideration of a report by the Committee on National Security and Intelligence.
Addressing reporters in Abuja, Akinyelure, a co-sponsor of the Bill, said: “The President owes us a lot of duty to ensure protection of life and properties.
“We know he is not a magician, but we know that the National Assembly has provided, through appropriation, all the needed equipment and manpower for the security agencies to work to effectively tackle the issue of insecurity.
“The National Commission is about private sector engagement in government. The infrastructure is already in place and the people to be engaged are already in place.
“The needed legislation that would enable them proliferation of Small Arms and Light Weapons (Establishment) Bill, 2022, is a consolidation of three Bills – two private-member Bills and one from the Executive, against the proliferation of small arms and light weapons in the country.
They are: The Nigerian National Commission against the Proliferation of Small Arms and Light Weapons (Establishment) Bill, 2020; The Nigerian National Commission against the Proliferation of Small Arms and Light Weapons (Establishment) Bill, 2020; and The National Centre for the Coordination and Control of the Proliferation of Small Arms and Light Weapons (Establishment) Bill, 2021.
The three Bills, after scaling second reading in the Senate, were referred to the Committee on National Security and Intelligence for further legislative work.
The committee’s Chairman Ibrahim Gobir (Sokoto East), in a presentation on the floor last Wednesday, said the three Bills seek to provide the establishment of a government body that would be saddled with combating the proliferation of small arms and light weapons in Nigeria.
According to him, the functions of the body shall be in line with Article 24 of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Convention on the Proliferation of Small Arms and Light Weapons, which came into force in 2009.