The blue Hilux vehicle with registration number Yobe NGU19XA left Bada/Daban in Borno State on Monday, July 30 this year. It was heading towards Maiduguri, the state capital. Laden with heaps of palm leaves, at least on the surface, the vehicle, the driver and two other occupants looked harmless. At about 9 pm when they got to Daban Masara, a border town with Chad in Munguno Local Government area of Borno State, the truck was flagged down by a team of the Joint Task Force, JTF, patrolling the area. The two men inside it reportedly opened fire as soon as security men accosted them, and an exchange of gunshots ensued.
The men suspected to be members of the dreaded Boko Haram sect were shot dead and the vehicle impounded. Apparently unknown to the security men, the vehicle was a moving armoury. In its bowels, hidden under the heaps of palm leaves, were eight rocket-propelled launchers, 10 rocket bombs, 10 rocket chargers and two AK-47 rifles. Also found in the vehicle were 13 magazines with six rounds of 7.62mm special ammunition and a Bank PHB ATM card.
About 10 days earlier in Lagos, two men, including a retired naval officer, were arrested with 8,450 live ammunition and pump-action machine guns concealed in bales of underwear. The police said they arrested the men on their way from Republic of Benin through Seme Border to Nigeria. These are just two instances of shock finds of illegal arms by security men in Nigeria.
Although Nigeria is not officially at war, the increasing level of insecurity and violence in the country is becoming more vicious by the day, thus giving the impression that the country is at best not at peace with itself. Armed militias and insurgents are springing up in many parts of the country either to attack or to engage in a balance of terror in defence of their sectional, political or religious interests. It was therefore not surprising that the country took the front row at the ongoing second review conference on small arms at the United Nations, UN, in New York. Joy Ogwu, president of the conference, who is Nigeria’s permanent representative to the UN, called for a concerted effort to combat the menace of small arms all over the world. The conference, which started on Monday, August 27, 2012 and ending on Friday, September 7, 2012, is the second review conference of the Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons. Delivering Nigeria’s official message at the occasion, John Ejinaka, a diplomat, said the Nigerian government has since May last year put measures in place to control the flow of illicit small arms and light weapons, particularly in states that have a history of militancy. He said the modest success recorded in the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, was one of the major gains in the implementation of the Programme of Action, POA, and the international tracing instrument in the UN system. However, notwithstanding the success at home and within the region, the Nigerian delegation said because of the obstacles that proliferation of illicit arms pose to development and peace, it was important that “member states [should] work together and address [the problem] together.”
The position of the country is understandable because while the militant Islamic sect, Boko Haram, that is claiming to be fighting a religious war is threatening most states in the North, killing, maiming innocent people and destroying property worth billions of naira, the southern part of the country is languishing under the burden of armed robbery, murder and kidnapping for monetary ransom. The increasing acts of violence and insurgency are no doubt fuelled by the increasing prevalence of firearms and ammunition in civilian hands in the country.
Shehu Abdulkadir, the chief of Army Standards and Evaluation and a major-general, disclosed recently that of the 10 million illegal weapons in circulation in West Africa, 70 per cent – or seven million – are in Nigeria alone, while sub-Saharan Africa is home to 100 million of such weapons. But the figure for Nigeria may be too conservative as it is one million less than the figure released by Nigeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in October last year at a meeting of the UN General Assembly Committee for Disarmament and International Security. Lawrence Obisakin, a senior director in the ministry, had told the committee then that Nigeria had spent more than $10 billion in the last two decades to stem the tide of recurrent conflicts caused by the circulation of an estimated eight million small arms in the country.
The 2011 Small Arms Survey released by the UN last week Monday, disclosed that about 875 million of such weapons produced by over 1,000 companies in 100 countries are in circulation worldwide. Nigeria’s share of between seven and eight million in West Africa puts it in the league of countries with high prevalence of illegal firearms like South Africa, Yemen, and the United States where the quantity of small arms in civilian hands is 5.95 million, 11.5 million and 270 million respectively.
For Nigeria, this was not the situation even at the peak of the Niger Delta violence in 2006 during which armed militants from the area engaged in kidnapping, destruction of pipelines and oil installations to draw attention to environmental degradation of the area, and government’s apparent neglect. At that time, it was reported that about two million small arms were in the hands of civilians and half of this number was said to have been illegally obtained. With the successful prosecution of the Amnesty Programme by the Umaru Yar’Adua administration in 2009, the militants reportedly surrendered a total 2,760 arms, 287,445 ammunition, 18 gunboats, 763 explosives, 1,090 dynamite caps, and 3,155 magazines.
Not many people believed that the militants actually surrendered all the arms in their possession. As it appears now, about five or six million of these weapons may have been added and they are in the hands of some civilians, including defiant militants, armed robbers, ethnic militias, hired assassins, political thugs, other criminals and insurgents of the Boko Haram mould. These arms fall into the category of what, in international circles, are called Small Arms and Light Weapons, SALW. They are any portable barrelled and lethal weapons designed to expel a shot, bullet or projectile, ammunition including destructive devices such as explosives, incendiary or gas bombs, grenades, rocket launchers, missiles and mines.
Experts on arms say these arms and ammunition can easily be proliferated in any country due to their inherent qualities such as simplicity, durability, relatively low cost, wide availability, lethality, portability and easiness to conceal. These factors coupled with porous borders, ineffectiveness of security agencies, corruption and increasing level of poverty, particularly in developing countries such as Nigeria, make their smuggling very attractive.
Gabriel Ajayi, a retired colonel in the Nigerian Army, observed that “Nigeria is a very big country and you can bring in artillery piece into Nigeria without being detected because we have very long borderlines and we cannot cover them effectively.” Ajayi is certainly not exaggerating. Nigeria has a total of 3,770-kilometre, km, of shared land borders between its neighbours, 850km maritime border on the Atlantic Ocean and many airports. The borders are so porous that virtually every good, banned or unbanned, is smuggled in on a daily basis.
The Nigerian Customs Service, NCS, claimed in a recent publication that between January and June this year, a total of 2,294 seizures with a duty paid value of N1.8 billion were made throughout the country. It revealed that 15 containers of dangerous weapons, including rocket launchers, mortars, bombs, small light arms and ammunition camouflaged as building materials, were imported into the country through Apapa, Lagos, port alone. If the above seizures were a big haul to the customs, Nigerians know that such seizures are just a drop of water in a mighty ocean. Areas notorious for arms smuggling are Idi-Iroko and Seme in Ogun State, the port city of Warri in Delta state, and the northeastern states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe that share common borders with Niger Republic and Cameroun.
A senior police officer, who pleaded for anonymity because he is still in service, told our correspondent that smuggling activities are normally fuelled by corruption. “All our security agencies are corrupt; customs officials are corrupt, policemen are corrupt, including officials of other agencies involved in manning our borders. So, when unscrupulous people bring in arms, the corrupt officials will seize the opportunity to enrich themselves. Therefore, thorough checking will not take place,” he revealed.
Tracing the history of arms proliferation in Nigeria, Ajayi said it started during the 1966-1970 civil war at the end of which, he said, no proper disarmament was carried out. “There was little demobilisation but there was no proper disarmament. Many went away with their weapons… and the outcome of that is the escalation of armed robbery, which became so rampant that the government had to set up the Armed Robbery and Firearms Tribunal to try offenders,” he recalled. He also explained that factors like the participation of Nigeria in peacekeeping efforts in Lebanon, Liberia, Sierra Leone; the collapse of totalitarian regimes in West Africa; and the crises in the southern part of Africa contributed to making Nigeria a transit point for arms delivery.
Of the arms being proliferated in Nigeria, the Kalashnikov variant, particularly the AK-47 rifle invented in 1947 by Colonel Kalashnikov, citizen of the defunct Union of Soviet Socialist Republic, USSR, is the commonest. Ajayi who described the weapon as a weapon of liberation spoke glowingly of it as “very light, very durable, very versatile, very manoeuvrable, very portable… handy and sophisticated.” Arms experts say the Kalashnikovs were the choice of the Niger Delta militants and also preferred by theBoko Haram insurgents who have also added improvised explosive device, IEDs, to their arsenal. In Nigeria, the AK-47 gun costs between $180 or about N28,800 and $200, about N32,600. Also said to be in circulation in Nigeria are automatic pump-action shotguns, shoulder launched rockets, Beretta and Browning pistols, carbine rifles, double-barrelled shotguns, G-3 rifles, general-purpose machine guns, and sub-machine guns. Most of the weapons, according to experts, are sourced from countries like Liberia, South Africa, Ivory Coast, Ukraine, Turkey, Kosovo, Bulgaria and Serbia.
For instance, in July 2010, Nigeria intercepted heavy arms shipment from Iran. The 13-container shipment contained artillery rockets and small arms and ammunition. The containers were labelled as “packages of glass wool and pallets of stone” and were freighted from the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas and unloaded at the Lagos port. The incident caused diplomatic row between Nigeria and Iran and this compelled Nigeria to report Iran formally to the UN. An oil company operating in the Niger Delta region has also been accused of importing arms and ammunition to the Niger Delta at the peak of the crisis in the area.
Besides, some of the weapons are sourced internally from local fabricators like blacksmiths mostly in the eastern part of the country. Weapons are also stolen from official armouries of government security agencies like the police, the military and customs and sold to members of the public. For instance, in 2002, one Jack Bot, a customs comptroller, was arrested for alleged gun-running, buying ammunition from Niger State Police Command; although Bot said he was not selling the arms but donating them to his people in Jos, Plateau State, where there have been recurring incidents of ethno-religious riots and killings.
About six years after the Bot incident, six military officers were arrested and prosecuted for selling arms from the depots of the Nigerian Army to militants in the then restive Niger Delta. The military, through general court martial, later sentenced Suleiman Akubo, a major; Matthias Peters, a sergeant; Alexander Davou; Moses Nwaigwe; and Nnamdi Anene, all lance corporals; and Caleb Bawa, a private to life imprisonment. Two others, Kola David and Aliyu Mohammed, though not jailed were demoted to private from lance corporal. The convicted military men were found guilty of selling 7,000 arms of varying description to the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta, MEND, through Sunny Okah, a junior brother of Emmanuel Okah, leader of the group. Though Bala Usara, brigadier-general and president of the court, had said that his panel imposed a “punitive” sentence to serve as “a deterrent to others,” cases of connivance by security personnel continue unabated. Last July, 16 policemen were arrested in Zamfara State for allegedly releasing weapons and ammunition belonging to the police to a notorious armed robbery gang in the area. Such collusion that exposes even the official armoury to abuse has been a source of concern to the authorities.
Nigeria has an official light weapons producing industry, the Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria, DICON. It produces pistols, rifles, short guns, submachine guns, grenades including bullets and cartridges. One of its products is the Nigerian brand of AK-47 named OBJ-006 after former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
A lot of weapons were also brought into the country by the Sani Abacha regime between 1993 and 1998. Ajayi told the magazine that, “there is so much of AK-47 in Nigeria, enough to arm three divisions (of the army) in the country. But they are in the wrong hands.” If such versatile weapons are in the hands of three divisions, which in military parlance mean three large groups of soldiers, Nigeria then appears to be in a long battle with itself. The end product is general insecurity, which now manifests in several forms like threat to lives and property and, more importantly, threat to the nation’s unity and the economy.
The illicit trade in small arms, light weapons and ammunition, says the UN, “wreaks havoc everywhere; mobs terrorizing a neighbourhood; rebels attacking civilians or peacekeepers; drug lords randomly killing law enforcers or anyone else interfering with their illegal businesses (and) bandits hijacking humanitarian aid convoys. In all continents, uncontrolled small arms form a persisting problem.” Nigeria is reeling under the throes the UN painted above. Facts from a recent Small Arms Survey indicated that over 100,000 Nigerians have died since 1999 in ethno-religious conflicts, “which have been characterized by an increased involvement of SALW from local and international sources.” Figures from GunPolicy.com, an international agency portal dealing in small arms researches, indicate that the number of homicides increased from an average of about 1,500 persons per annum between 1995 and 2000. The figures climbed to an average of over 2,000 persons from 2001 to 2008. The peak was in 2004 when the nation recorded 2,550 homicide victims.
Recent newspaper reports claimed that the Boko Haram insurgency has so far claimed over 2,000 lives since it began its bloody campaign in 2009 with almost half of the number recorded between last year and July this year. Expectedly, property worth billions of naira has been destroyed, including the UN headquarters in Abuja. Most northern cities and towns have almost been declared no-go areas by concerned foreign countries, many of who have asked their citizens to steer clear of these places. Indeed, government has been rendered irrelevant in states like Borno, Yobe and Plateau.
The Boko Haram insurgency, perceived in most quarters as a partisan political and religious creation from the North against the nation’s political leadership led by President Goodluck Jonathan, appears to have successfully heightened talks about dismembering the country or bringing about a comprehensive review of the relationship between its constituent units.
In the days of the Maitatsine sectarian crisis in the North, bows and arrows, knives, cudgels and machetes were weapons of violence. But that is now history. The prevalence of small arms has made such acts of mayhem, including armed robberies, kidnapping and other crimes, much more gruesome and perennial. The Campaign for Democracy, CD, a civil society organisation, claimed that no fewer than 938 persons were kidnapped between January 2008 and August this year in the southeastern part of the country alone, with three states, Anambra, Imo and Abia, topping the list in that order. Anambra recorded 273 victims, Imo 265 and Abia, 215. Enugu and Ebonyi, two other states in the five-state geopolitical zone notorious for kidnapping, recorded 95 and 90 cases respectively. While a few of the victims died in the process, many had their relatives, or governments in some cases, buy freedom for them to escape death. According to the CD, kidnappings in the area within the survey period led to the payment of about N1.2 billion as ransom to the assailants.
Many Nigerians thus fear that the country has gone to the dogs and they are worried about the prevailing Hobbesian state of nature where life is nasty, brutish and short. Adebowale Adefuye, Nigeria’s ambassador to US, aptly described the security situation in the country as a serious challenge, blaming it on bad governance, corruption, underdevelopment and poverty, which he observed had accumulated over the years. President Jonathan appears to have anticipated the situation last year when he hinted in December that the increasing level of arms proliferation in the country had become a threat to the country’s peace. “We have consistently warned about the spread of small arms across Africa and especially the West Africa region by foreign merchants of death, who are ingenious and desperate to sell their wares at our expense,” he said while inaugurating the Command and Staff College of the NCS in Abuja. “This act has added weight to the ongoing violence in some parts of the country.”
His solution was that the customs, being the guardian of the nation’s borders, should double its efforts at combating smuggling at the borders. But the President’s admonition appeared unheeded as the NCS and other security agencies have proved incapable of stopping or reducing the evil trade due mostly to corruption. Faced with the ugly situation, many politicians, religious leaders and social critics are asking the President to confront the security challenge head-on. But like the President, many people are looking at the direction of tightening the noose at the borders in the belief that once this is done, the supply end of the bloody but lucrative trade is fully tackled.
This explains why Nigeria, on several occasions, signed several bilateral agreements with its neighbours apart from making appeals for cooperation in this regard. Only last week Tuesday, Abdullahi Dikko, the comptroller-general of the NCS, and Soussia Theophile, his Republic of Benin counterpart, called for a renewed commitment in tackling smuggling in small arms and light weapons across their borders. To Dikko, the proliferation of arms and trade in hard drugs were the twin headache of the two countries. “It has become imperative that we save our nations from self destruction,” he pleaded with his visiting colleague.
But does the challenge end at the borders? If the security agents succeed at the borders, how do they stop the spread of the millions of arms already within the country? Security experts believe that arrests and prosecution have hardly helped the situation. It is on record that over the years, many arrests have been made but only few of the suspects have been successfully prosecuted and punished. Many legal practitioners attribute this to loopholes in Nigeria’s Firearms Act, enacted in 1959 but reviewed in 1990. Princewill Akpakpan, a Lagos-based lawyer, told the magazine in an interview that the Act “does not in strict sense specifically mention or prohibit the proliferation of firearms, but it regulates the licensing of prohibited, personal and muzzle-loading firearms, their sales and transfer, export and import under parts 2, 3 and part 5 of the Act.” Continuing, the lawyer explained: “I don’t think the Act is enough to assist in the prevention of proliferation. The Act is not strong enough in its preventive and penal provisions to stop this problem.”
But there are sections of it that prohibit manufacture, repair, importation and dealership, for examples, with penalties ranging from six months to 10 years’ imprisonment. In South Africa, the maximum punishment for illicit possession is 15 years in prison after trial and conviction.
Akpakpan insists that the Act be “reviewed given the time of its enactment, which is 1959. When you look at situations and incidences that were not contemplated like the emergence of ethnic militia groups using various ammunitions and firearms, like Niger Delta militants armed struggle, the Movement for the Actualisation of Sovereign State of Biafra, MASSOB, the Boko Haram insurgency at the time of the promulgation, you would see the urgent need for the amendment.
“Again, the status of the Council of Ministers and Lagos being the federal capital and the delegation of authority of the inspector general of police to ‘any police officer’ (as contained in the Act) should be amended to give effect to the new reality. The provisions on conditions for the grant of licence and import and export of arms and the registration of arm dealers should be strengthened. The following sections amongst others should be amended: Sections 5 (3) (1); 7 (2); 8 (3); 12, 20, 29, 30, 32 (2); 33, 34, 35 and 36 (2), he suggested.”
But Ajayi sees another challenge in the fight against arms proliferation. “Arms proliferation is part of the world market; it brings in big money for those in it. Some are living in big weapons money in America… They must survive; so if you must get them out of that business, you can do it either by negotiation, by carrot and stick or by give and take.” This is an economic dimension with international political connotation. The issue has thus become a landmine that must be carefully diffused to prevent diplomatic filibustering by certain world powers. It therefore requires a give-and-take attitude as advised by Ajayi, who insists that with “the way things are now, we cannot escape from the dangerous consequences of arms proliferation. The more there is crisis in other countries surrounding us, the more we shall be a safe haven for weapons. So even if we make laws that people should return their weapons, the ones that are returned will also get back through illegal means.”
So, what is the way out? Some experts are suggesting the Niger Delta amnesty approach of mopping up arms from their owners and paying a handsome amount in return. South Africa, for instance, recently mopped up a total of 244,719 arms under its Gun Amnesty Collection and Seizure programme. Even the US where possession of arms is guaranteed by law, about 830,000 of such weapons were mopped up between 1993 and 1996 under its Collection, Amnesty and Destruction programme.
But can this approach work with the Boko Haram insurgents and the restless ethnic militias in Nigeria? A combination of the above suggestions, stiffer laws, strict vigilance by the customs and other security agencies and a gun collection amnesty could be the solution to the security challenge in Nigeria.
Perhaps more importantly is the need to prevent socio-political and economic situations that warrant the use of firearms. This is why some Nigerians are commending the Jonathan administration for agreeing to dialogue with the Boko Haram sect whose conditions for dialogue give no respect to the secular status of Nigeria or the right of every Nigerian to practise any religious faith of his or her choice. The insurgents had demanded that President Jonathan renounce Christianity and become a Muslim while the country should adopt the Sharia law.
Even then, the situation can still be managed. Akpakpan believes that Nigeria needs a strong political will, a strong law and a conscientious president to achieve the ultimate goal of bringing about peace and economic progress in the country. In the area of small arms management, the Lagos lawyer is of the view that “a good and conscientious President having a strong political will cannot make any impact or achievement in this area using an impotent or a weak law passed by the legislature; and a good law passed by the most resourceful parliament would make no result where the President has no political will to implement it; both must be coterminous and work in tandem to achieve the ultimate goal,” he surmised.
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