Surveyor Efik
15 January 2008
opinion
Lagos — The proliferation, misuse and illegal possession of small arms and light weapons (SALWs) is becoming a common culture in various societies. In the not-too-distant past, SALWs was alien to the African society apart from the crude and primitive ones used by hunters in the hinterland.
Today, the incessant cases of political instability, deepening poverty, crimes of armed robberies, assassinations, militancy, oil bunkering, civil wars, ethnic insurgencies, to mention a few, are all fueled by the effects of small arms and light weapons proliferation.
This has made the quest for achieving good governance and poverty alleviation very difficult. In West Africa, the issue of small arms and light weapons as anti-development tools or a blockade to sustainable development is felt in every nook and cranny of the sub-region.
Meanwhile, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is trying in various ways to control the proliferation, misuse and illegal possession of SALWs in the sub-region. It started with the setting up of Small Arms Unit (SUA) in its sub-regional secretariat in Abuja and has been using it to initiate and implement several programmes and projects aimed at ensuring effective control of SALWs in the sub-region.
The sub-regional Government, under ECOWAS Protocol on good governance, produced ECOWAS Moratorium for the Import, Export and Manufacture of Small Arms and Light Weapons which was adopted in 1998 and now transformed into a convention for the purpose of shifting the focus from mere 'moral persuasion' in curtailing the spread of illicit weapons to 'enforcement' of the protocol.
It seeks to achieve its mandate by enhancing the capacity of the Government of the 15-member States through their respective National Committee on Small Arms and Light Weapons, commonly called NATCOM for the effective control of SALWs in their countries. ECOSAP is also saddled with the task of engaging and building capacity of civil society organisations (CSOs) in the sub-region for the same purpose through the West African Action Network on Small Arms (WAANSA) headquartered in Ghana.
In executing its mandate, ECOSAP has a strategic partnership with the Media, which it engages for the purpose of its advocacy and communication programmes in the fight against SALWs. This led to media engagement of practitioners drawn from the 15-member States through the auspices of WAANSA.
Recently, in Bamako, Mali, the sub-regional Journalists were engaged in an ECOSAP-organised 'Experts Meeting to Finalise Advocacy and Communication Strategy Document in West Africa', in November 2007 with funding from UNDP Mali.
The four-day Bamako Meeting, which was chaired by Col. Sirakoro Sangare, the Chairman of sub-regional NATCOMs also had Mr. Djeidi Sylla,the Programme Advisor of UNDP Mali; Mr. Jonathan Sandy, the Head/Technical Advisor of ECOSAP; and the WAANSA President, Baffour Dokyi Amoa, who was represented by Pepe Michelle.
The action-plan document serves as a roadmap for the effective control of SALWs in the West Africa sub-region as it defines the vision for the campaign of SALWs control in West Africa and further spells out the roles of various stakeholders in the campaign and implementation of relevant strategic programmes to achieve its vision and set goals.
The involvement of the various stakeholders is captured through the involvement of NATCOMs; National Legislatures; CSOs; the media; the grassroots/communities; trans-border sub-regional and national agencies; the private sector, including the manufacturers, suppliers and contractors of SALWs within and outside the sub-region etc.
During the closing formalities of the Bamako Meeting, the sub-regional group which was formally inaugurated as West African Network of Journalists on Security and Development (WANJSD) under Ahmadu Maiga of Mali as President, officially presented the body to ECOSAP with the commitment to contribute to improving good governance and small arms control in West Africa for the achievement of ECOWAS agenda, including poverty alleviation and sustainable development.
The ECOWAS had evolved a regionally binding legal instrument known as ECOWAS CONVENTION on small arms and light weapons, their ammunitions and other related materials (2006) and has been signed up by all member States. It is presently undergoing ratification, which must pass through each national legislature for domestication.
Until now, it is only Niger Republic that has ratified the Convention. In Nigeria, more is left to done, especially by the Yar'Adua Government. Nigeria's NATCOM has to be, first of all, domiciled in the Presidency to address issues of lack of funding and bureaucratic hitches to enable it function like other pro-development agencies such as HIV/AIDS (NACA), EFCC and NEITI. Contrary to this, the national fight against the anti-development virus (SALWs) would not take off adequately.
If the national fight against financial/economic crimes were left in the hand of a Department in the Ministry of Police Affairs, or that of corruption in the extractive industry in the hand of a Department in either the Ministry of Petroleum/Solid Minerals and that of HIV/AIDS in a Department of the Ministry of Health, then their successes, which have contributed greatly to national growth would not have been realistic.
That, Nigeria's NATCOM is sandwiched in a Department in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, may only be misconstrued by many including the International Community, as Yar'Adua Government's insincerity in fighting the small arms proliferation in Nigeria.
This is rather disturbing considering the influence of Nigeria as the Big Brother in the sub-region, whom the member-States usually look up to and could perhaps be waiting to follow her steps in the convention ratification process.
The 2007 report of the Small Arms Survey, Geneva upholds that 'Nigeria has national firearms legislation that is comprehensive and restrictive, but poorly enforced. The country has signed on to a number of regional and international legal instruments aimed at reducing small arms proliferation, but national committees designated to implementing these measures have been poorly resourced and ineffective. Arms continue to flow into the country, raising questions of whether there is lack of commitment or a lack of capacity to tackle the problem'.
This suffices to state that the Government of Yar'Adua needs to brace up to the campaign for the control of small arms and light weapons in Nigeria by rescuing its National Committee on Small Arms and Light Weapons (NATCOM) from the doldrums, and promoting ECOWAS' effort by ratifying the convention
-Efik a Development Worker and Member, West Africa Action Network on Small Arms (WAANSA), wrote in from Port Harcourt, Rivers State
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