The National Security Adviser (NSA), Nuhu Ribadu, says security operatives supply arms belonging to the government to terrorists and bandits in the country.

Ribadu said this during the arms destruction exercise organised by the National Centre for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons (NCCSALW) at the Muhammadu Buhari Cantonment in Abuja on Thursday, October 17, 2024.

The NSA, who rained curses on security agents facilitating the movement of weapons to terrorists, said illicit arms ended up in the hands of bandits due to corrupt elements within the security agencies.

Speaking before he set the illicit arms ablaze, the former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) stressed that the government would do everything possible to make Nigeria safe.

Ribadu said: “If we want to recover our country and live in peace and stability, this type (killings) of things must stop. I have been in this job for too long, almost 40-something years of my life.

“The worst human being is a policeman or a soldier who will take arms from his own formation and sell it or hand it out for the bad people to come and kill his own colleagues; you’re the worst human being, you’re evil, you’re worse than a kidnapper, you’re worse than a Boko Haram. It happens and it is happening.

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“A sizeable number of illicit weapons in our own midst originally belong to the government; people take it and sell it. It is terrible; we have to stop it.

“We must fight these people, we must stop it. But there are also these people, merchants of death, and merchants of evil from outside this country. They manufacture these weapons all over and you bring it to this poor part of the world so that we will kill ourselves. They are there; shame on you.

“You make money, you make blood money from this part of the world. Look at how they have just destroyed our lives. God will punish you all. Look at what is happening in the Sahel – Niger, Mali, Chad, Burkina Faso. No part of the world is going through what they are going through.

“The only thing they bring to them is arms and weapons to kill themselves. They don’t want to bring technology for us to improve our lives. What everybody is doing is to come and sell arms to us.”

The NSA, however, said the military and other security agencies would not shy away from securing the country, adding: “We are not going to relent. They think we are jokers, we are not. We know what we are doing and I can assure you that with the leadership we have today in our country, with the set of people in charge, we have hope.

“Just give us time. It will change. The proliferation of small arms and light weapons remains a major threat to our national security. We will fight it. We will secure this country.”

The Star