The Sea Empowerment & Research Center (SEREC) has urged the Federal Government to move beyond merely intercepting illegal firearms at Nigerian ports and shift to tracing the entire supply chain to prevent illicit weapons from leaving their countries of origin.
The maritime think-tank issued the call in its end-of-month advisory bulletin released on August 31, 2026, and made public in Lagos on September 1, 2026.
The statement followed the recent interception by the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) at the Tin Can Island Port Command in Lagos, where officers discovered 204 firearms and component parts concealed inside household items shipped from Turkey.
The seizure came barely two weeks after another major intercept at the same port yielded 399 pump-action rifles.
Speaking on behalf of the organization, Eugene Nweke, Head of Research at SEREC, emphasized that intercepting illicit cargo at destination points is no longer enough to curb the persistent threat posed by transnational criminal syndicates.
”The safest firearm is not the one intercepted at Tin Can Port, but the one that never left the source country,” Nweke stated. “Every major arms seizure must trigger a network investigation rather than ending as a routine seizure report.”
SEREC proposed an “Origin-First Doctrine,” advocating that security and customs agencies progress from basic port intelligence to broader network intelligence.
The organization urged the Federal Government to follow the full evidence trail, investigating exporters, financiers, consolidators, freight forwarders, shipping lines, vessels, and ultimate beneficiaries, to dismantle smuggling rings at their roots.
The group also advocated for reviewing past Turkey-origin arms smuggling investigations to determine previous findings and institutionalize long-term corrective measures.
SEREC advocated for bilateral trade security mechanisms, by establishing a joint Turkey-Nigeria arms trafficking prevention mechanism involving customs, maritime, financial, and intelligence authorities from both nations.
Deploying an artificial intelligence-driven trade-security platform to cross-reference data across shippers, containers, transit routes, and historical seizures to detect hidden patterns.
Logistics Value-Chain Auditing, including shipping lines and maritime logistics operators in risk-based investigations to track recurring trafficking operational methods.
While praising the leadership of the Comptroller-General of Customs, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi, and the officers at the Tin Can Island Port Command under Comptroller Joseph Anani, SEREC stressed that sustained success depends on equipping frontline officers with advanced technology, funding, and cross-border intelligence support.
