Abuja — ECOWAS ministers responsible for Defence and Security on Wednesday, 17th March 2010 adopted a five-year Plan of Action for the Implementation of the ECOWAS Convention on Small Arms and Light Weapons, Their Ammunition and Other Related Materials approved by regional leaders in 2006.

The two -day meeting also approved the data base mechanism for the management of the Exemption Process for importing arms by Member States. In order to ensure their effective implementation, the Ministers recommended that Member States take appropriate measures to meet their designated responsibilities in the implementation of The Convention.

In this regard, they urged those Member States that have not done so to ratify the Convention and dedicate budgets for the National Commissions on Small Arms to be set up in Member States to manage the implementation of the Convention at the national level.

Member States that have ratified the Convention are Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo.

The meeting also adopted activities to be implemented at national and regional levels and urged the ECOWAS Commission to extend the life span of the ECOWAS Small Arms Programme (ECOSAP) for five years.

Opening the meeting earlier, Nigeria's Honourable Minister of Defence in Nigeria, Maj. Gen. Godwin Abbe (rtd) blamed the proliferation of Small Arms for the 'loss of lives and property and for impeding national development while posing a threat to national and human security' in ECOWAS Member states. He said the 'the availability and easy access to illicit Small arms and Light Weapons is a factor in the worrisome level of criminality and incessant intra- state conflicts in West Africa', and recalled the humanitarian consequences of armed violence particularly the issue of refugees which increases the burden of governance in the sub-region.

Citing the 1998 Moratorium on the Importation, Exportation and Manufacture of SALW which was transformed in 2006 into a Convention, the Gen. Abbe commended the Authority of Heads of states and Government for vigorously tackling the illicit proliferation of SALW. He therefore urged member states to actively pursue the implementation of the national survey on SALW and the findings from the surveys meant to facilitate the implementation of the Convention.

He then congratulated the ECOWAS Commission for its efforts that resulted in the securing the requisite ratification for the entry into force of the ECOWAS Convention and reiterated Nigeria's commitment at national and sub-regional levels to ensure the effective control of proliferation of Small arms and Light Weapons. He urged those charged with the implementation of the process to make the Exemption Form user friendly for efficiency.

In his remarks, the President of the ECOWAS Commission, Ambassador James Victor Gbeho said that with the entry into force of the Convention on 29 September 2009, its implementation had become urgent. In this regard, he said that 'the ECOWAS Commission will submit two documents for the coordinated, effective and hitch-free implementation of the Convention'. These are the five- year Plan of Action and the Exemption Request Form.

President Gbeho also expressed optimism that that those states that have not ratified the Convention would do so expeditiously to ensure the 'institutionalisation and effective functioning of the National Commission and the priority control activities that would constitute the "focus our energies and resources including the identification of the minister responsible for signing exemption request.

While closing the meeting, Dr. Ezekiel Oyemomi, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Defence repeated the call for ECOWAS to begin the implementation of the Convention based on the agreed documents and commended the participants for the vigour and enthusiasm that characterized the meeting. The Plan of Action is the framework for the coordinated implementation of the ECOWAS Convention for both the ECOWAS Commission and Member States. It prescribes major actions and activities and identifies responsible parties in the implementation process while the database aims to promote transparency in the transactions on small arms among Member States.