Project Abstract

Project Overview

<p> </p><p><strong>INTRODUCTION</strong></p><p><strong>1.1 Background to the Study</strong></p><p>The<br>proliferation of small arms and light weapons is one of the major security<br>challenges currently facing Nigeria, Africa and indeed the world in general.<br>The trafficking and wide availability of these weapons fuel communal conflict,<br>political instability and pose a threat, not only to national security, but<br>also to sustainable development. The widespread proliferation of small arms is<br>contributing to alarming levels of armed crime, and militancy.</p><p>&nbsp;The increasing pace of violence across the<br>globe, with major occurrence in Africa, has brought about renewed focus on<br>small and light weapons control. It is estimated that there is an approximate<br>of 875 million small arms in circulation across the globe, including those<br>stockpiled and in private procession, produced by over 1000 companies and<br>generating trade excess of US$8.5 billion (Karp, 2007). Out of this ominous<br>volume, governments and state militaries possess 200 million while 26 million<br>weapons are within the control of the law enforcement agencies. Similarly,<br>Chelule (2014) noted that there are about half a billion military small arms<br>around the world; each year between 300,000 to half a million people around the<br>world are killed by these weapons and every minute someone is killed by a gun;<br>90% of civilians are casualties by small arms because the civilians get access<br>to purchase more than 80% of the arms produced in the world. To establish the<br>extent of this threat in Africa, Bah (2004) asserts that out of an approximate<br>of 500 million illicit weapons in circulation worldwide, an estimate of 100<br>million are in Sub-Saharan Africa with eight to ten million concentrated in the<br>West African sub-region alone. This portentoustrend<br>further reveals that Africa needs strategic intervention.</p><p>Small arms proliferation has been particularly devastating in<br>Africa where machine guns, rifles, grenades, pistols and other small arms have<br>killed and displaced many civilians across the continent (Allison, 2006). The<br>result of this rapid expansion of weapons according to Allison (2006) is that<br>the weapons, their parts and ammunition are more easily diverted from their<br>intended destination. Consequently, countries with fewer and less strict gun<br>regulations become the destination points. War-torn or post-conflict nations<br>which are common in Africa portend a profitable market for the sale of Small<br>Arms and Light Weapons (SALW). The guns have thus far fostered instability in<br>the West African region, worsened the security of the region, weakened the<br>power of the government and provided a motivation for poverty to thrive.</p><p>At the national level, Nigeria continues to rely onthe National<br>Firearms Act of 1959 as the legal instrument governing small arms possession,<br>manufacture and the use in the country as amended even though the Robbery and<br>Firearms (Special Provisions) Decree No.5 was promulgated in 1984 and later the<br>Robbery and Firearms (Special Provisions) Act. In July 2000, the Nigerian<br>government proposed and established a National Committee on the Proliferation<br>and Illicit Trafficking in Small Arms and Light Weapons the purpose of which<br>was to determine the sourcing illegal small arms and collect information on<br>small arms proliferation in Nigeria. In May 2001, the government established a<br>second committee aimed at implementing the 1998 ECOWAS Moratorium. These two<br>committees were later merged into a single committee. The committee has<br>accomplished little due to lack of political will, financial support, technical<br>expertise, and institutional capacity. Consequently, there were renewed efforts<br>in 2007 to revive the activities of the Committee and legislation is being<br>written to convert the Committee into a national commission. It requested<br>support from the ECOWAS Small Arms Programme to conduct the survey and to undertake<br>other activities in support of the implementation of the 2006 ECOWAS Convention<br>(Hazenand Horner, 2007). Inaugurated in 2001, the NATCOM is responsible for the<br>registration and control of SALW, and granting of permits for exemptionsunder<br>the ECOWAS Moratorium (Chuma-Okoro, 2011).</p><p>Despite these national-efforts, the rate of accumulation ofSALW is<br>increasing and becoming endemic as various forms of violence and casualties are<br>in the recent times recorded in the country. There is lack of capacity and<br>strong legal or effective institutional frameworks to regulate SALW and combat<br>the phenomenon of SALW proliferation in Nigeria, particularly Northern part of<br>Nigeria (Chuma-Okoro, 2011). More fundamentally, the Nigeria is yet to deal<br>with the demand factors of SALW proliferation preferring to dwell on the<br>symptoms rather than the root causes. The demand factors are the root causes of<br>SALW proliferation, because if there is no demand, there will not be supply. Consequently,<br>Nigeria now features prominently in the three-spot cline of transnational<br>organised trafficking of SALWs in West Africa: origin, transit route and<br>destination. Weapons in circulation in Nigeria come from local fabrication,<br>residue of guns used during the civil war, thefts from government armouries,<br>smuggling, dishonest government-accredited importers, ethnic militias,<br>insurgents from neighbouring countries and some multinational oilcorporations<br>operating in the oil-rich but crisis-plagued Niger Delta. Whenand where these<br>SALWs are deployed, human security has been the main victim.</p><p>These were the motivations<br>for the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Convention of Small<br>arms and Light Weapons in 2006. The highlights of the Convention include the a ban on international<br>small arms transfers (except those for legitimate self-defence and security<br>needs, or for peace support operations); a ban on transfers of small arms to<br>non-state actors that are not authorized by the importing member state;<br>procedures for shared information; stringent regulatory scheme for anyone<br>wishing to possess small arms and strong management standards to ensure the<br>security of weapons stockpiles.</p><p>It is in consonance with the highlight of the 2006 SALW Convention<br>and other subsequent attempt of ECOWAS to tackle the issues of gun control that<br>this study attempts to examine the challenges of ECOWAS in combating Small and<br>Light Arms in Africa.</p><p><strong>1.2 Statement of the Problem</strong></p><p>The dimensions and persistence of conflicts in West Africa has<br>created a favourable outlet for the sale of arms and other light weapons.<br>Chiekh (2005) noted that these conflicts<br>have had the combined effect of sucking in millions of illicit small arms, making<br>the Mano River Basin (comprising Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and, by<br>extension, Côte d’Ivoire) an attractive and profitable theatre for illicit arms<br>merchants, mercenaries and other non-state actors. These unstable conditions make it difficult to<br>regulate arms sales and movements. More so, the dealings in Small Arms and<br>Light Weapons (SALWs) have been a source of income for countries who are<br>engaged in the production of guns. Apart from the direct sales of guns and<br>light weapons, weapons are traded with West Africans for natural resources such<br>as rubber, timber and, most importantly, diamonds<br>(Chiekh, 2005). This barter system has made the running of SALW beneficial to<br>both parties.</p><p>In West Africa, the uneven implementation of<br>regional agreements leaves loopholes that arms traffickers can utilize for<br>their nefarious trade. These traffickers are usually quick to adopt trade<br>routes where national controls are weak, and often take advantage of<br>insufficient cooperation between border control authorities or differences in<br>national regulation. These trends have necessitated the quest for a framework<br>for the implementation of the ECOWAS convention and the need for a broad based<br>inter-sectoral platform and collaboration between government and agencies, and<br>local communities.So far, the ECOWAS convention is still undergoing<br>harmonization with local arms law in the various national parliaments of member<br>states.</p><p>About 350 million of the 500 million Small<br>Arms and Light Weapons (SALWs) in West Africa are in Nigeria. This is a<br>whopping 70 per cent of the West African sub-region’s SALWs, 90 per cent of<br>which are in the hands of non-state actors. Yet the situation only promises to<br>grow worse with the influx of weapons from the residue of the conflicts in<br>Libya and Mali (This Day, 2016). What this has revealed clearly is that there<br>is a growing market for SALWs in the country and government ought to intervene<br>more decisively to stem the ugly tide. The insurgency in the North-East, the<br>resurgence of militancy in the Niger Delta, the menace of herdsmen in the<br>North-Central and the rising wave of violent crimes, including armed robbery<br>and kidnappings, particularly in the South-East and the South-West of the<br>country are directly linked to the upsurge in SALWs even as they demonstrate<br>the concrete negative impact on national efforts at integration and<br>development.</p><p>To deal with these challenges, government<br>needs to key into the ECOWAS Convention on Small Arms and Light Weapons. In<br>light of this, it is pertinent to note that while Nigeria is a signatory to the<br>ECOWAS protocols, the National Assembly is yet to pass the bill concerning the<br>establishment of the National Commission against the Proliferation of Small<br>Arms and Light Weapons. Indeed, Nigeria is the only West African country that<br>does not have the commission that is saddled with the responsibility of<br>tracking the spread of SALWs. In like manner, the archaic 1959 Firearms Act<br>that regulates the use of firearms in the country is yet to be amended by the<br>federal legislature.</p><p>These challenges as it applies to states in<br>West Africa have not only hampered the economic development of the individual<br>states but that of the region also, putting both lives and property in danger. The proliferation of these small arms and the<br>new emergent trend in violence in the region put to question the efficacy and general<br>commitment of ECOWAS to combating this menace (Bashir, 2014). The research is therefore an attempt to<br>critically evaluate the challenges and prospects of ECOWAS in combating small<br>and light arms proliferation in the region vis-à-vis the effects of small and<br>light weapon proliferation in West Africa.</p><p><strong>1.3 Objective of the Study</strong></p><p>The main objective of the study is to investigate the efforts and<br>challenges of ECOWAS in its bid to control the proliferation of Small and Light<br>Arms in the West African region. The specific objectives are to:</p><ol><li>trace the flow and distribution of small and<br>light arms in West Africa;</li><li>assess the instruments used by Ecowas in<br>combating Small and Light Arms in the West Africa;</li></ol><ol><li>examine Ecowas border control<br>methodologies and its protocol on free movement of people and goods in<br>light of the proliferation of small and light arms in West Africa;</li><li>ascertain the extent to which Nigeria has<br>implemented theEcowas Convention on Small Arms and Light Weapons and</li><li>probe the effects of domestic laws on the<br>general objectives of Ecowas Small Arms Control Programme vis-à-vis the extent<br>to which the Nigerian Fire Arms law has curbed the proliferation of small<br>and light arms in Nigeria.</li></ol><p><strong>1.4 Research Questions</strong></p><p>The following research questions would be<br>addressed in the course of the research, serving as a guideline to the<br>attainment of the research objectives:</p> <br><p></p>