Arms proliferation: Security agencies being lazy with statistics – Festus Aboagye

There have been many incidents of illegal importation of arms into Ghana in recent times

A security analyst attached to the Kofi International Annan Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC) has said Ghana’s security risks being thrown into disarray by unrecorded gun ownership by civilians.

Col. Festus Aboagye (rtd) said available statistics about the number of registered and illicit arms held by civilians is outdated, painting an unreliable picture of the danger that this presents to Ghana’s security.

A 2014 report commissioned by the National Small Arms Baseline Survey and launched in 2016, reveals that 2.3 million small arms were in circulation.

Speaking to this data, Col Aboagye (rtd) said the country needs an updated and reliable data that can help policymakers to get a grip of how to deal with the incessant robberies and gun violence that is gradually threatening to disrupt national peace.

“We are being lazy about statistics. This figure of two million-plus that all of us are peddling is based on KAIPTC study…dating to 2014. It is reasonable to assume that six years on, more weapons have been acquired that have not been declared, that have been smuggled,” he said.

His comments follow the seizure of over 400 pistols and thousands of ammunitions that was illegally imported into the country last Friday, October 9, 2020.

The arrest of the guns and ammunition on Friday is among recent incidents of large hauls of arms finding its way to Ghana illegally.

Col Aboagye (rtd) said, “commendation must go to whoever was on duty, behind the machine that saw that the machine was flagging…assuming that that individual had been bribed he would have overlooked it.”

With few months to the December 7, presidential and parliamentary elections, armed robbery attacks and gun-related violence have been on the rise, raising doubts about peaceful general elections.