Police recover 425 illegal arms, extend deadline to April

The Nigeria Police Force (NPF), yesterday, said the Joint Enforcement Task Force constituted by Inspector General of Police, IGP Ibrahim Idris, has recovered 425 illegal and prohibited fi rearms from the public. Force Public Relations Officer (FPRO), ACP Jimoh Moshood, who made the disclosure in a press statement, yesterday in Abuja, said the deadline for the return of the arms have been extended to April 30, 2018.
The Police boss recently gave a February 22 to March 14, 2018, deadline for the return of prohibited fi rearms to the Police. The spokesperson said, “the IGP has graciously extended the ultimatum for another 21 days witheff ect from April 9 to April 30. This is as a result of impressive compliance by Nigerians across commands in the country and also to grant public request for an extension.”
He said fi rearms recovered include: 114 AK 47 rifl es, 17 English made pistols, 27 pump action guns; 28 barrel guns; two locally-made revolver guns; Sub Machine guns (SMG); two General Purpose Machine Gun (GPMG). While stating that some of the arms were returned voluntarily, while some were recovered by the team; the spokesperson warned that at the expiration of the deadline, the Force would arrest and prosecute those keeping such arms.
He, however, explained that no one would be arrested for voluntarily returning these fi rearms as the Force was mopping up prohibited fi rearms in the country to ensure the safety of lives and property of Nigerians.
On the success of the exercise in the commands, Moshood said 12 state commands recorded successes since the beginning of the directive with Abia topping the list with 1,280 arms recovered. Lagos and Katsina following with 200 and 198 arms recoverd. Others are: Benue-47; Borno-32; Kaduna-70; Nasarawa-35; FCT-78; Taraba-56; Rivers-140; Adamawa-14; Kogi-67 and Delta-12.

 

Leave a Reply