PRESCOM prescribes Benue Amnesty model … As ECOWAS urges Ortom to be disarmament advocate

The Presidential Committee on Small Arms and Light Weapons, PRESCOM, at the weekend recommended that the Benue State’s Amnesty Program be adopted as a model.
Chairman of the committee, Ambassador Emmanuel Imohe, represented by Ambassador Eineje Onobu, made the recommendation at a two-day Stakeholders’ Sensitization Forum on Small Arms and Light Weapons Survey in Nigeria.
The event was held at Hallydays Hotel in Makurdi.
This came on the heels of the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, Commission’s request that Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State should become a leader in the advocacy effort at the highest level of government in Nigeria.
“It bears repeating that the Benue State Amnesty and Disarmament Program has become a model for others,” Ambassador Imohe stated.
He said the Benue State Government “has been a trailblazer in defining in all its dimensions, the problem of illicit weapons in our society and the emplacement of concrete measures to combat it.”
“You have already done tremendous work on this score, indeed many are beginning to follow the path and example that Benue State under your focused and visionary leadership has charted,” he stressed.
In his speech, President of the ECOWAS Commission, Mr. Kadre Desire Ouedraogo, represented by Dr. Sani Adamu requested Governor Ortom to accept the commission’s request to lead in the advocacy effort at the highest level of government in Nigeria to ensure an even more enabling environment for the PRESCOM.
Governor Ortom stated that “the event would help to sensitize and enlighten those present and give a clear focus on the issue as well as orientation on how to assist in the recovery of illicit weapons in the custody of miscreants.”
Stakeholders at the forum were also hosted to a dinner and command performance at which the Benue Arts Council performing troupe entertained the guests with numerous cultural dances and dignitaries were decorated with traditional attires at the New Banquet Hall of the Benue Peoples House.