Only last week, the United Nations (UN) raised alarm over the illicit proliferation of Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW) in Nigeria with over 350 million or 70 per cent of an estimated 500 million of such weapons said to be circulating in West African countries.
This was made known by the Director of United Nations Regional Centre for Peace and Disarmament in Africa (UNREC), Olatokunbo Ige, who gave the statistics at the ongoing National Consultation on Physical Security and Stockpile Management (PSSM) in Abuja, organized by the Agency and Presidential Committee on Smalls Arms and Light Weapons (PRESCOM). Ms. Ige said Nigeria is awash with illicit weapons, which have found its way into unauthorized hands on non-state actors that are threatening the existence of the country, as well lives and properties of the people.
According to her, “The illicit proliferation of SALW has had a dramatic impact on peace and security in Africa, threatening not only the existence of the state, but also the livelihoods of millions of people across the continent,” she said.
She noted that Nigeria is one of the countries that is experiencing some of the most devastating effects of the proliferation of SALW as a result of spillover effect of the recent crises in Libya, and Mali as well as unresolved internal conflicts in different parts of the country especially in the North East, Niger Delta and Southern regions.
Although, it is true that reliable data on the numbers of these weapons circulating freely in the country is unavailable, informed circles have in recent times estimated that of the about 500 million weapons that may be circulating in West Africa in 2010, some 70 per cent of these could be found in Nigeria
Ige warned that “as alarming as these figures seem, it is very clear that if left unchecked, this scourge will not only jeopardize the developmental gains achieved over the last 50 years, but will also impede the nation’s capacity to achieve its developmental targets and therefore, negatively impact on the future generations”.
This has no doubt highlighted, more than ever before the critical need not only to control the flow of arms in the non-state sector, but also the state owned actors through the effective management of the armoury and weapon stockpiles. It is widely known that one of the major factors contributing to the illicit proliferation of arms is the ineffective stockpile management. It is a well known fact that unsecured stocks and ineffectively managed stockpiles are a major contributing factor to the trafficking and diversion of arms into the illicit market and their subsequent flow to the terrorists and other criminal groups like insurgents and militants.
Indeed, there is every need for both state actors and non state actors to support security and stability in the region. National governments and regional organizations should devise a variety of measures to better regulate the legal trade in light weapons and to combat illicit weapons trafficking. We must have a convention on the illicit weapons trade that calls for standardization of national firearms regulations and increased law enforcement and customs cooperation to prevent illicit weapons flows within the region. A super model needs to be developed to regulate the outflow of arms focusing on the linkages between the narcotics trade and weapons smuggling. Within the sub-region, moreover, expert has proposed that similar efforts be undertaken by other African countries.
However, it is a good thing that West African governments are working with the United Nations to assess the regional implications of light weapons diffusion and to craft a regional moratorium on the import, export and manufacture of such arms, but they need to do more by involving ordinary people who are on the known about the destinations of these weapons. For instance, in Central Africa, the United Nations has established a trust fund with which to remove small arms and light weapons from the region, they need to extend this action to our region. Again, the need to establish a regional database on stolen firearms and the implementation of multilateral police operations to recover such weapons is highly recommended.
Mechanisms should be put in place by developed countries to control both legal and illegal shipments of weapons, particularly to countries experiencing civil strife and human rights abuses. They should as well evolve a programme for preventing and combating illicit trafficking in conventional arms. ECOWAS nations in collaboration with international organizations should adopt a platform on arms transfers with the aim of preventing such transfers to areas of conflict and internal repression. Both measures will require political will in constraining arms transfers and dedicated resources to help affected countries monitor arms shipments and remove excess weaponry.
Given the fact that much of these light weapons trade takes place illegally, the role of national governments in tightening and enforcing export and import regulations will be very important. There is need to pressurize or diplomatically approach nations involved to agree on stronger export controls in the context of bringing peace and normalcy in the region.
Communities, local government authorities and NGOs with the help of federal government should begin grassroots campaigns to remove small arms from circulation at the local level, and to pressure citizens to take the light weapons problem more seriously. To achieve this, an avenue must be provided to involve various ethnic, tribal and youth groups together to deal with the spate of violence plaguing our nation. Based on the fact that we have experienced horrific conflicts carried out with automatic weapons, notably the Boko Haram killings, stakeholders have to come together to lobby for more restrictive gun control laws. This move must be supported by NGOs and grass roots organizations by putting the spotlight on governments’ responsibility for supplying weapons to areas of conflict and persistent human rights abuse.
From all that has been said and known about the international trade in small arms and light weapons, it is evident that no single set of policy initiatives will suffice to deal with this problem as the effort to control the diffusion of light weapons will demand a host of initiatives, extending from the international arena to regional, national and local levels. Nigeria government especially will have to go beyond their support for cracking down on the illegal trade in light weapons and examine their own role in the current legal weapons trade. The following initiatives represent a rough menu of the sort of steps that will be needed to subject light weapons transfers to greater international scrutiny and to reduce the flow of such munitions to areas of conflict.
More importantly is the establishment of norms. This is to adopt international norms against the uncontrolled and destabilizing transfer of small arms and light weapons to areas of tension and conflict. Although, deference must be made to the traditional right of sovereign states to arm themselves, it must be made clear that this right has natural limits and does not extend to the acquisition of arms for the purpose of engaging in genocide or the suppression of opposition political or religious movements. It must become self-evident, moreover, that the right to acquire arms for self-defense entails an obligation to maintain such weapons under effective government control at all times and to preclude their diversion to illicit purposes.
It is a truism that efforts to monitor and control the diffusion of small arms and light weapons are hampered by a lack of detailed information on the production, sale and transfer of such munitions. Few governments provide detailed data on imports and exports of light weapons, and the UN Conventional Arms Register covers major weapons only. To ensure effective international oversight of the legal trade in light weapons, efforts at increased transparency must be made at the national, regional and international level. National governments should be required to publish detailed annual tallies of weapons imports and exports, while regional arms registers covering light weapons should also be encouraged. Finally, ECOWAS states must partner with nations involved in arms manufacturing to drive this initiative home and enforce it to cover all types of munitions, including small arms and light weapons.
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