Nigeria\u2019s police could not account for thousands of firearms, including 88,078 AK-47 rifles, an audit report published by the auditor general of the federation on Tuesday showed.<\/p>\n
Missing firearms raise worries in a country fighting growing insecurity from Islamist insurgents in the northeast and armed kidnappings and banditry in the north and northwest.<\/p>\n
In his latest report published on its website and covering the period to December 2019, Auditor General Adolphus Aghughu said that a review of arms movement from police armouries in Nigeria showed several weapons were missing and unaccounted for.<\/p>\n
Police did not respond to written request for comment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe total number of lost firearms as reported as at December 2018 stood at 178,459 pieces. Out of this number, 88,078 were AK-47 rifles,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n
It did not specify whether the figures were for 2018 alone or over a period up to that time. There was a risk the firearms could get into the wrong hands or used for illegal activities, said the report.<\/p>\n
The auditor general\u2019s report is before a joint public accounts committee of Senate and Lower House, which will scrutinise it, invite the police to respond and give recommendations.<\/p>\n
The constitution empowers the auditor general to conduct audit checks on all government departments.<\/p>\n
SBM Intelligence said in a report in October 2020 that proliferation of small arms and ammunitions was driving the increasing violence in Nigeria, with civilian non-state actors believed to possess more small arms than law enforcement agents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nigeria\u2019s police could not account for thousands of firearms, including 88,078 AK-47 rifles, an audit report published by the auditor general of the federation on Tuesday showed. Missing firearms raise worries in a country fighting growing insecurity from Islamist insurgents in the northeast and armed kidnappings and banditry in the north and northwest. In his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1637,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":1,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"Reuters","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"0","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":""},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":""},"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,34,27],"tags":[175,176],"class_list":["post-1636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-society","category-west-africa","tag-nigeria","tag-police-firearms"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}