Nigeria establishes center for arms control

By Jeyhun Aliyev

ANKARA (AA) - Nigeria on Monday established an arms control center to combat security problems in the country.

"President @MBuhari [Muhammadu Buhari] has approved the establishment of a National Centre for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons (NCCSALW) to be domiciled in the Office of the National Security Adviser," the Nigerian Presidency said on Twitter.

The NCCSALW is set to serve as the institutional mechanism for policy guidance, research and monitoring of all aspects of small arms and light weapons in the West African country, said a statement from the office of the national security adviser.

"This decision is part of ongoing restructuring of Nigeria’s security architecture to address emerging threats and strengthen the regional mechanism for the control, prevention and regulation of SALW," the statement added.

It also stressed that the impact of the proliferation of small arms and light weapons across national borders in Africa and the Sahel region has resulted in terrorism, human trafficking, organized crime and insurrections in West Africa and Nigeria.

The Boko Haram terror group launched a bloody insurgency in 2009 in northeastern Nigeria but later spread its atrocities to neighboring Niger, Chad and Cameroon, prompting a military response.

More than 30,000 people have been killed and nearly 3 million displaced in a decade of Boko Haram's terror activities in Nigeria, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Violence committed by Boko Haram has affected 26 million people in the Lake Chad region and displaced 2.6 million others, according to the UN Refugee Agency.