AN APPRAISAL OF THE ECOWAS LEGAL REGIME ON PROLIFERATION AND MISUSE OF SMALL ARMS AND LIGHT WEAPONS: A CASE STUDY OF NIGERIA

CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

1.1        Background to the Study

Whether it is Africa, Sri Lanka, or even Chechnya and Afghanistan, it is not heavy weaponry or hi-tech devices that kill the most people, but the flood of cheap, easy to get, Small Arms and Light Weapons that has swept over so many countries. Yet a lot of this cross-border arms trade is illegal.¹ Relying on highly organized international logistical structures, criminals trespass territorial boundaries, whilst law enforcement agents act within the confines of domestic law to counter the proliferation of Small Arms and Light Weapons. Report has it that Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW) are responsible for the majority of battle-related conflict deaths, an estimated 60-90 percent of all direct conflict victims are killed with firearms. Large numbers of men, women, older people and children die indirectly from the effects of armed conflict on the economy, ruined health and security infrastructures, disease and famine². Ironically, the use of these weapons is common to the global South. For instance Africa is one of such places because of its vulnerability to different kinds of conflicts including ethnic and religious crisis. The relation between the accessibility of SALW and the outbreak and severity of conflict is more dramatically evident in West Africa. Liberia was the first to suffer. With only 100 irregular soldiers armed primarily with AK-47 assault rifles, Insurgent leader

Charles Taylor invaded the country and within months, he had seized mineral and timber resources and used the profits to purchase additional light weapons. Had he needed to equip his forces with heavier weapons such as artillery, armored cars and tanks—the weapons conventionally associated with a conquering army—Taylor would have faced crippling logistical obstacles. In comparison, a few boatloads of assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns were simple to transport and provided more than enough firepower³.

The firepower of modern SALW —and the rapid escalation of violence that such weaponry makes possible—was evident even in the early stages of Liberia’s civil war. Much the same cycle of violence engulfed in Rwanda, with SALW as the primary weapon of the day. Once competing groups have been armed with SALW, any minor dispute can escalate quickly into a major bloodbath. And the availability of such weapons, even in remote and inaccessible places makes it difficult for the International community to bring the warring parties to the bargaining table and, curb the cycle of bloodletting. Brokering peace has proved especially difficult in countries such as Angola and Sierra Leone, where rebel forces have been able to exchange diamonds or other commodities for guns and ammunition on the black market.⁴

In West Africa, due to porous borders, weak state institutions, and increasing trade in small arms and light weapons in the sub-region, post conflict States such as Cote d‘Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia and Sierra-Leone are increasingly prone to

destabilization. The region has witnessed an outbreak of ethnic, religious and sectarian conflict characterized by routine massacre of civilians. These wars have killed millions, devastated entire geographic regions, and left tens of millions of refugees and orphans. Little of the destruction was inflicted by the tanks, artillery or aircraft usually associated with modern warfare; rather most was carried out with pistols, machine guns and grenades⁵. Recent events show that influx of small arms has caused instability even in relatively stable West African Countries. For example, armed with small arms and other light weapons, Islamic rebels returning from the Libyan conflict have excised Northern Mali from the rest of the Country⁶.

In Nigeria, Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW) and groups misusing them, are dangerously out of control in the Niger Delta Region while Boko Haram insurgents employing the use of light arms have also caused considerable instability in the Northern part of the Country.⁷Although small arms and light weapons are not themselves a cause of conflict, their ready accessibility and low cost can prolong combat, encourage a violent rather than a peaceful resolution of differences, and generate greater insecurity throughout society—which in turn leads to a spiraling demand for, and use of, such weapons^.

However, despite the notorious and disruptive reputation that SALW has generated, it has failed to attract the degree of International commitment it deserves.

Major world powers have not demonstrated the degree of resoluteness and un-equivocation it has in stemming the proliferation of SALW. Some scholars expose the irony of this priority by arguing that nuclear weapons, with all their horror, have not killed since Nagasaki in 1945, while SALW have killed an estimated three million men, women and particularly children since 1990. For West Africa, foreign interest in her vast mineral resources and viability of the SALW trade has both been identified as being responsible for the less than sufficient interest of the developed world in stemming this lethal trade. The argument by some other scholars that SALW do not cause conflict is well taken, but its spiral effect on conflicts remains too significant to ignore.According to Ero and Ndinga-Muvumba⁹ writing on Small Arms and Light Weapons in a contribution to Adebajo and Rashid‘s West Africa‘s Security Challenges Building Peace in a Troubled Region ―While Small Arms and light weapons do not of course, cause conflicts, they soon become part of the conflict equation by fuelling and exacerbating underlying tensions, generating more insecurity, deepening the sense of crisis, and adding to the number of casualties.‖