Salisu Na'inna Dambatta
18 December 2007
opinion
Abuja — Nigeria, respected in the world for its positive roles in global peace-keeping, good neighborliness, regional leadership in the African Union (AU) and the Economic Community for West African States (ECOWAS), has consolidated its commitment to peaceful co-existence in the world by becoming the 123rd country to ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention and deposited the instrument of ratification with the United Nations Secretary-General.
The Chemical Weapons Convention, which Nigeria signed alongside other 65 countries in 1993, is a disarmament treaty that seeks to ban the development, production, stockpiling, use or transfer of Chemical and Biological Weapons in the world. In short it is a treaty against weapons of mass destruction in all forms and of all descriptions.
Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Ambassador Baba Gana Kingibe said recently while opening a sensitizing workshop organised by his Office and the Hague, Netherlands-based Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) for top public servants, that the treaty is, "aimed at not only eliminating Chemical Weapons from the surface of the earth through the destruction of existing stockpiles but also to prevent the development of new Weapons of Mass Destruction to ensure that the world is made a safer place for mankind."
Nigeria has taken active steps to go beyond signing and ratifying the treaty: it has set up a high-powered Council to ensure that the convention is implemented to the latter. The implementation body is an Inter-ministerial Council on National Authority on Chemical and Biological Weapons Conventions. Ambassador Baba Gana Kingibe said it is composed of Ministers of Defence, Foreign Affairs, Justice, Science and Technology, Industries and Environment. Others on the Council are National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), the Nigerian National Oil Corporation (NNPC), Nigeria Customs Service, National Agency for Pharmaceutical Research and Development Council, the Nigeria Police Force, the Nigerian Institute for Chemical Research and Leather Technology and other stakeholders in the chemical and allied sector. Additionally, the SGF disclosed that relevant authorities in Nigeria have kept track of all scheduled chemicals coming into Nigeria and has declared them on imports to OPCW from 1994-2006. "Work is progressing on the 2007 data," he assured.
Still on how seriously Nigeria is implementing and sticking to the Convention, Ambassador Kingibe reminded Nigerians and the world at large that, "As a mark of Nigeria's commitment to disarmament and global peace, our former President (Chief Olusegun Obasanjo) who was then Chairman of the African Union, on June 28 2005, visited the Headquarters of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in the Hague, Netherlands. That made him the first African Union Chairman to undertake such a visit."
Readers would appreciate the significance of Nigeria 's ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention and the relevance of the workshop organised by the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation as they appreciate the destructive nature of weapons of mass destruction.
But first a definition: The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) defined a chemical agent or weapon as "a chemical substance which is intended for use in military operations to kill, seriously injure or incapacitate people because of its physiological effects."
In all, about 70 different chemicals have been used or stockpiled as Chemical Weapons in liquid, gas or solid forms. The tear gas used by the police to control rioters is a very mild chemical weapon. It is SN gas (tear agent 2) or tear agent 0 (CS gas). Those who experienced its effect on them can imagine the damaging effect the undiluted version of it can do to its victims. Mild as it is, tear gas incapacitates momentarily, and it is only about 1/100 of the full toxic strength of the chemicals or gases used in making it. Chemicals used in tear gas manufacturing include chlorine, phosgene, diphosgene and chloropicrin.
Mr. Paul Rice, the technical manager for medicine at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratories, Porton Down, Salisbury, Wiltshire in the United Kingdom said in a publication that between 1914-1918 over 1, 300, 000 people had gas injuries during World War I and more than 90,000 of them died. The harmful effects caused by some of the chemical agents, such as lesions caused by mustard, do not have specific treatment. The eyelids can stick, for instance, if saline is not applied to clean the eyes of victims.
Japan used mustard gas, phosgene and hydrogen cyanide on the Chinese in 1936. The most naked use of chemical weapons, mustard gas, was by the Italians in 1935 when they used aircraft to spray Abyssinia ( Ethiopia ) in an attempt to colonise that country.
There are nerve and blister and other highly toxic chemicals. Sarin gas, Mustard gas, Tabrun and VX are the best examples listed in the Chemical and Biological Weapons Site on the Internet. They burn and blister the skin, eyes and destroy the central nervous system of those afflicted with any of them. There is no therapy for their damaging effects yet. Botulism and ricin are other dangerous chemicals and biological elements that are toxic, can kill quickly and must be avoided.
Mr. Paul Rice, the technical manager for medicine at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratories, Porton Down, Salisbury , Wiltshire in the United Kingdom said in an article that other chemicals that have dual purpose, including the capacity to kill and maim are cyanide, hydrogen and phosgene. Phosgene is known to cause coughing, induce pulmonary oedema rapidly and dehydration of the body.
Paul Rice and a colleague, who support the Chemical Weapons Convention, argued that the treaty can help control proliferation of chemical weapons and verify disarmament "but it would be naïve to assume the threat will disappear."
Even if the threat would not disappear, Nigeria has agreed to the terms of the Convention: never to develop, produce, otherwise acquire, stockpile or retain chemical weapons, or transfer, directly or indirectly, chemical weapons to anyone; never use chemical weapons; never engage in any military preparation to use chemical weapons and never assist, encourage or induce, in any way, anyone to engage in any activity prohibited to a State Party under this Convention.
Salisu Na'inna Dambatta is an Assistant Director of Information in the SGF's office
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