Gladys Nweke
The Rivers State Police Command is upbeat about the voluntary response by arms bearing members of the public to submit their arms whether legally or illegally acquired arms as it has recovered about 120 arms in the on going mop-up exercise within two weeks.
The arms were recovered from 13 local government areas visited by the command’s Task Force on mop up of arms out of the twenty-three Local Government areas in the State.
Spokesman of the command, DSP Nnamdi Omoni, said the sensitization embarked upon by the Task Force had been yielding results without any form of coercion.
He re-emphasized that anyone who failed to take advantage of the 21 days window created by the Inspector-General of Police, would have himself to blame.
“We have been making progress since we started this sensitization and I can tell you it has been yielding results.
“In the first week of this exercise, we recovered over a hundred arms. In another three days, we recovered 15 arms.
“Most of those who have been surrendering their arms have been doing so voluntarily.
“The IGP’s directive is being followed and people must understand that it is not targeted at anybody. We just want everyone to cooperate so we don’t have to break into people’s homes to retrieve arms,” he stated.
He warned that the command will go after those in possession of arms after the 21 days ultimatum as directed by the IGP.
