Some members the Senate on Wednesday accused the security agencies in the country of giving weapons to criminals.
The lawmakers also indicted the Nigeria Customs Service and the Nigeria Immigration Service for conniving with criminals who smuggled arms and ammunition illegally into the country.
They linked killings, kidnapping, banditry and other forms of insecurity in the country to the proliferation of small arms and light weapons.
The senators expressed the views when the Senate debated a bill titled, “A Bill for an Act to provide for the establishment of the Nigeria National Commission against the Proliferation of Small Arms and Light Weapons and for related matters.”
It was sponsored by Senator Smart Adeyemi.
Adeyemi said, “The bill will recommend possible ways to monitor, control, halt, and mitigate the nagging illegal activities of unscrupulous persons, companies and organisations.”
Senator Adamu Aliero accused men of the Nigeria Customs Service of allegedly conniving with arms dealers to smuggle in small arms into the country through the borders.
He said, “If the bill is not passed into law by the National Assembly, violence will continue unabated.”
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Senator Ibrahim Gobir alleged that immigration and Customs were “conniving with criminals to proliferate illegal arms and ammunition in the country.”
Also on Wednesday, a bill for an Act to establish the Nigerian Civil Defence Academy in Padongari, Niger State, passed second reading.
The sponsor, Senator Musa Sani, said the academy would serve as an institution of high level manpower development.