Following
rising cases of militancy championed by the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) and
other armed struggles, the poor implementation of the Presidential
Amnesty
This was disclosed
weekend in Abuja by the Chairman, Presidential Committee on Small Arms and
Light Weapons (PRESCOM), Amb. Emmanuel Imohe, during the Inter –Ministerial
Roundtable on the ATT in Nigeria organized in collaboration with West African
Action Network on Small Arms and Light Weapons (WAANSA) and Control Arms
Coalition.
Imohe raised alarm that Nigeria is awash with SALW and said that the
implementation of the Amnesty programme was poorly carried out in that the
militants might have returned knocked out weapons in exchange for funds with
which some might have likely used to purchase more sophisticated arms.
He said
that while PAP initiative was a right move, but its execution did not align
with the spirit and letter of its initiators. He said: “Something is wrong with
the implementation of the Amnesty Programme so that the spirit does not tally
with the letter of the programme. There is no congruent in the two and I pray
that as the things stands in the Niger Delta, government does not allow the
crisis to degenerate further.
“Anybody who wants to resolve the security
situations in this country must first of all mop up the weapons so that these
groups do not have access to them. The country is awash with small arms and
light weapons. So it is important for us as a country to put up a system that
can help mop up the weapons in circulation.”.
Speaking further, Imohe who is
the President, second Conference of State Parties (CSP2) of ATT coming up in
August this year in Geneva, Switzerland, urged African countries to ratify the
treaty. He frowned at poor level of ratification of the Treaty by African
countries despite the fact that the region is bearing the highest burden of the
consequences of the unregulated trade on arms. According to him, no Arab and
North African country has ratified the Treaty, saying that it does not portray
good signal for Africa as “small arms are the continents Weapon of Lass
Destruction (WMD)”.
“It is important for us to embrace the ATT and to know that
Africa will be the most beneficial and that’s why we compelled at the
discussion leading to the ATT for the SALW to be included. Small arms is what
has been killing our people. It is our weapons of mass destruction and that is
why I said ATT is a significant addition to all the efforts against arms
proliferation.” Presently, he said, 130 countries are signatories to the
Treaty, out of which 86 countries have ratified including 18 from Africa with
16 signatories. Imohe however highlighted that resource constraint is most
likely to be a contributing factor for the low rate of participation of African
countries in the implementation of ATT adding that “exploring the platform of
the Regional Economic Community (RECs) in Africa to enlist the participation of
African countries in the ATT implementation was critical in view of their
active participation in canvassing the African position during the ATT
negotiations”.
On his part, the President of WAANSA-Nigeria, Mr. Orji Dickso,
reiterated the importance of ATT especially when considered within the context
of the grave impacts of illicit SALWs proliferation in Africa.
Orji noted that
an effective implementation of the ATT would help in curtailing illicit SALWs
proliferation thereby decreasing the prevalence of instability and threats to
international peace and security. He further emphasized the universality of ATT
is very crucial, thus Africa should practically be in the forefront towards
achieving it in view of the immense advantages. According to him, Africa’s
presidency of the CSP2 and the interim head of the ATT Secretariat should serve
as platforms to be explored to galvanise more enlistment of African countries
as State Parties of ATT.
Orji further noted that the implementation of the
Treaty in West Africa in general and Nigeria in particular has remained a
crucial issue of discussion. This, he said, is against the backdrop of
establishing the institutional framework for implementation of ATT, which is
wider in scope vis-à-vis the ECOWAS Convention on SALWs.
He recalled that
Stakeholders are looking at the possibility of the National Commission on SALWs
becoming the institution to equally drive the ATT implementation in the
sub-region.
At the meeting of the round table, the Chairman of PRESCOM who is
also the President of CSP2 of the ATT was urged to continue engaging critical
stakeholders both in government, legislature and CSOs towards an effective
implementation of the ATT and other arms control instruments in Nigeria.
PRESCOM was also urged to engage critical government stakeholders especially
the heads of the defence, security and intelligence institutions in the country
to ensure that they always explore regional and sub-regional platforms to
promote international arms control instruments such as the ATT.
