Senator Urges Nigerian Military To Use Advanced Technology To Fight Crime

Senator Jimoh Ibrahim of Ondo South Senatorial District has claimed that an application on his smartphone can detect the number of guns in both the National Assembly and the Presidential Villa, noting that there are more than 277 guns around.

The claim was made during a plenary session on Wednesday while discussing a motion -- sponsored by Senate Chief Whip Ali Ndume -- about recent bombings in Gwoza town, Borno State.

"I don't want to take much of your time but I will say clearly it costs nothing for the intelligent army to get devices in their phone to know where these notorious criminals live," Ibrahim said, Premium Times reported.

"As I am here, I check my phone regularly and I know the number of guns that are very close to me here. This is just less than one thousand installations. Within us now, there are over 277 guns around here just because an armory is close to this place."

The senator urged the Nigerian military to use advanced technology to fight crime rather than deploying more officers to such locations.

"So, what I am saying is, with technology, just like distinguished Senator Ndume had said, to deploy technology rather than using soldiers," he said.

Senate President Godswill Akpabio interrupted Ibrahim and questioned if he was aware of how many bullets were inside those hundreds of guns around the vicinity.

Ibrahim answered that "there is a probability that half of them have bullets," stressing that this was dangerous and it was important to find out the source of these guns. However, he did not specify who possessed these guns.

"But because I can locate that the armory close to us and very close to the villa, then I can understand that we are safe," he said before emphasizing that the military should stop using unconventional strategies to fight insurgency in Nigeria.

The senator stressed the importance of addressing security concerns effectively, stating that living in insecurity should not be accepted as normal. He expressed strong condemnation for incidents like bombings that result in loss of life, describing such acts as completely unacceptable.

Earlier this week, President Bola Tinubu, the United Nations and the United States condemned bomb attacks in Tashan Mararaba located in Gwoza town, Borno State, which resulted in the deaths of at least 18 people.