The Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) says some unidentified elements are using camels to bring Rocket Propelled Grenades and anti-aircraft guns into Nigeria through the Sokoto and Zamfara borders from neighbouring countries.
Chairman of ACF, Chief Audu Ogbeh stated this in a Thursday statement titled,‘Our borders and insecurity’.
He disclosed that members from Sokoto and Zamfara states at the last meeting of the forum reported that large herd of camels were crossing into the Nigerian borders with a lot of baggage on daily basis without anyone checking them.
Both states share borders with Niger Republic.
Ogbeh, who is a former Minister of Agriculture under the current administration, lamented that such lapses within Nigerian borders persist at a time when weapons of all kinds “are coming into our country and worsening the climate of terror and national uncertainty.”
“Already, it is speculated that weapons as dangerous as Rocket Propelled Grenades and anti-aircraft guns are part of the cargo ferried by camels freely into our country from neighbouring countries,” he stated.
He said he found it duty bound to alert the Federal Government to the situation in order for urgent and necessary actions to be taken.
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The ACF chairman added, “It is clear now from what we know that as victims pay ransoms to the kidnappers, the money is instantly converted to more sophisticated weapons and instruments of death by the kidnappers.
“The capacity of these terrorists is rising by the day and we are not far from the moment when the terrorists will become better armed than our accredited security agencies.
“The ACF wants to alert the government to this situation if they are not aware of it; and if they are aware of it, to ask what they are doing about it.
“Already, it is speculated that weapons as dangerous as Rocket Propelled Grenades and anti-aircraft guns are part of the cargo ferried by camels freely into our country from neighbouring countries.
“It will do the nation a great deal of good to deal with this situation immediately. The ACF is deeply worried.”