Ex-Head of State, Abdulsalami worried over proliferation of weapons in country

A former Head of State and National Peace Committee (NPC) Chairman Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar has railed against the increase in weapons across the country.

Abubakar made this disclosure on Wednesday, at a dialogue session of the committee with key stakeholders in Abuja.

According to the former Head of State, six million weapons were estimated to have been smuggled into the country.

This has led to the degeneration in law and order, Abubakar posited.

He also said that this menace led to over 80,000 deaths and close to three million Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs).

Read also: Abdusalami lauds Ondo poll, says conduct of voters worthy of emulation

According to him, the challenges facing the country were not only security in the narrow sense of the military definition but that they have assumed an all-encompassing nature.

He said: “The proliferation of all caliber of weapons not only in our sub-region in general and in Nigeria in particular is worrying. It is estimated that there are over 6 million of such weapons in circulation in the country. This certainly exacerbated the insecurity that led to over 80,000 deaths and close to 3 million IDPs.”

Join the conversation

Opinions