Niger Delta: Surrendered weapons destroyed

The federal government has destroyed the arms and ammunitions that were surrendered by former militants of the Niger Delta as part of the amnesty deal brokered by the late president Umaru Musa Yar'Adua in late 2009.

The weapons were destroyed at a public destruction ceremony in the Lokpanta, a border town on the outskirts of Enugu State in the southeast. The president's special adviser on Niger Delta affairs, Kingsley Kuku, explained that the federal government's decision to publicly destroy the weapons was informed by the realisation that the continued existence of such weapons acted as a destabilising in?uence, especially since the potential for illicit trade was still quite high.

Henry Ugbolue, of the Amnesty Of?ce, who was one of the of?cers presiding over the destruction of the weapons revealed that about 3,779 weapons in all were recovered from militants from Imo, Delta, Edo, Cross River, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Rivers, and Ondo states. The weapons included various ?rearms, ri?es, rocket propelled grenades, and spears.

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