CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the Study

Theproliferation of small arms and light weapons is one of the major securitychallenges currently facing Nigeria, Africa and indeed the world in general.The trafficking and wide availability of these weapons fuel communal conflict,political instability and pose a threat, not only to national security, butalso to sustainable development. The widespread proliferation of small arms iscontributing to alarming levels of armed crime, and militancy.

 The increasing pace of violence across theglobe, with major occurrence in Africa, has brought about renewed focus onsmall and light weapons control. It is estimated that there is an approximateof 875 million small arms in circulation across the globe, including thosestockpiled and in private procession, produced by over 1000 companies andgenerating trade excess of US$8.5 billion (Karp, 2007). Out of this ominousvolume, governments and state militaries possess 200 million while 26 millionweapons are within the control of the law enforcement agencies. Similarly,Chelule (2014) noted that there are about half a billion military small armsaround the world; each year between 300,000 to half a million people around theworld are killed by these weapons and every minute someone is killed by a gun;90% of civilians are casualties by small arms because the civilians get accessto purchase more than 80% of the arms produced in the world. To establish theextent of this threat in Africa, Bah (2004) asserts that out of an approximateof 500 million illicit weapons in circulation worldwide, an estimate of 100million are in Sub-Saharan Africa with eight to ten million concentrated in theWest African sub-region alone. This portentoustrendfurther reveals that Africa needs strategic intervention.

Small arms proliferation has been particularly devastating inAfrica where machine guns, rifles, grenades, pistols and other small arms havekilled and displaced many civilians across the continent (Allison, 2006). Theresult of this rapid expansion of weapons according to Allison (2006) is thatthe weapons, their parts and ammunition are more easily diverted from theirintended destination. Consequently, countries with fewer and less strict gunregulations become the destination points. War-torn or post-conflict nationswhich are common in Africa portend a profitable market for the sale of SmallArms and Light Weapons (SALW). The guns have thus far fostered instability inthe West African region, worsened the security of the region, weakened thepower of the government and provided a motivation for poverty to thrive.

At the national level, Nigeria continues to rely onthe NationalFirearms Act of 1959 as the legal instrument governing small arms possession,manufacture and the use in the country as amended even though the Robbery andFirearms (Special Provisions) Decree No.5 was promulgated in 1984 and later theRobbery and Firearms (Special Provisions) Act. In July 2000, the Nigeriangovernment proposed and established a National Committee on the Proliferationand Illicit Trafficking in Small Arms and Light Weapons the purpose of whichwas to determine the sourcing illegal small arms and collect information onsmall arms proliferation in Nigeria. In May 2001, the government established asecond committee aimed at implementing the 1998 ECOWAS Moratorium. These twocommittees were later merged into a single committee. The committee hasaccomplished little due to lack of political will, financial support, technicalexpertise, and institutional capacity. Consequently, there were renewed effortsin 2007 to revive the activities of the Committee and legislation is beingwritten to convert the Committee into a national commission. It requestedsupport from the ECOWAS Small Arms Programme to conduct the survey and to undertakeother activities in support of the implementation of the 2006 ECOWAS Convention(Hazenand Horner, 2007). Inaugurated in 2001, the NATCOM is responsible for theregistration and control of SALW, and granting of permits for exemptionsunderthe ECOWAS Moratorium (Chuma-Okoro, 2011).

Despite these national-efforts, the rate of accumulation ofSALW isincreasing and becoming endemic as various forms of violence and casualties arein the recent times recorded in the country. There is lack of capacity andstrong legal or effective institutional frameworks to regulate SALW and combatthe phenomenon of SALW proliferation in Nigeria, particularly Northern part ofNigeria (Chuma-Okoro, 2011). More fundamentally, the Nigeria is yet to dealwith the demand factors of SALW proliferation preferring to dwell on thesymptoms rather than the root causes. The demand factors are the root causes ofSALW proliferation, because if there is no demand, there will not be supply. Consequently,Nigeria now features prominently in the three-spot cline of transnationalorganised trafficking of SALWs in West Africa: origin, transit route anddestination. Weapons in circulation in Nigeria come from local fabrication,residue of guns used during the civil war, thefts from government armouries,smuggling, dishonest government-accredited importers, ethnic militias,insurgents from neighbouring countries and some multinational oilcorporationsoperating in the oil-rich but crisis-plagued Niger Delta. Whenand where theseSALWs are deployed, human security has been the main victim.

These were the motivationsfor the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Convention of Smallarms and Light Weapons in 2006. The highlights of the Convention include the a ban on internationalsmall arms transfers (except those for legitimate self-defence and securityneeds, or for peace support operations); a ban on transfers of small arms tonon-state actors that are not authorized by the importing member state;procedures for shared information; stringent regulatory scheme for anyonewishing to possess small arms and strong management standards to ensure thesecurity of weapons stockpiles.

It is in consonance with the highlight of the 2006 SALW Conventionand other subsequent attempt of ECOWAS to tackle the issues of gun control thatthis study attempts to examine the challenges of ECOWAS in combating Small andLight Arms in Africa.