The Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) has raised an alarm over mass movement of camels allegedly ferrying arms into the country unchecked.
The group stated this in a statement signed by its national chairman, Audu Ogbeh, a former agriculture minister, late Thursday.
The alarm comes amidst rising insecurity bedeviling the nation with the Chief of Army Staff, Tukur Buratai, recently promising to remedy the situation.
Mr Ogbeh said the group noticed the movements in October and the situation has remained unchanged.
While calling for an urgent action from the federal government, he added that intelligence reports suggested the animals ferried dangerous weapons including rocket propelled grenades (RPGs) and anti-aircraft guns, with security operatives failing to scrutinize the consignment.
“At the last meeting of our National Executive Council, NEC, in October 2020, our members, particularly from Sokoto and Zamfara, reported that large consignments of camels were crossing our borders into Nigeria with a lot of baggage on their backs on a daily basis,” the group said.
“And they observed that nobody checks their baggage and nobody knows what is being brought into Nigeria. The question Arewa Consultative Forum would like to ask the security agencies is what are the camels carrying and where they are heading?
“The ACF is alarmed that this kind of situation should persist at a time when weapons of all kinds are coming into our country and worsening the climate of terror and national uncertainty.
“It is clear now from what we know that, as victims pay ransoms to the kidnappers the money is instantly converted to more sophisticated weapons and instruments of death by the kidnappers. The capacity of these terrorists is rising by the day and we are not far from the moment when the terrorist will become better armed than our accredited security agencies.
“The ACF wants to alert the government about this situation, if they are not aware of it and if they are aware of it, to ask what they are doing about it. Already, it is speculated that weapons as dangerous as Rocket Propelled Grenades RPGs, and anti-aircraft guns are part of the cargo ferried by camels freely into our country from neighbouring countries,” it added.
