The authorities must do more to seal the country’s porous borders

For years, we have repeatedly warned that violent crimes in Nigeria and neighbouring countries have ceased to be just social deviance but a thriving enterprise. Even more frightening is the calibre and quantum of lethal weapons in the hands of non-state actors and contestants of territorial control. In parts of the Northeast where Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) operate, the arsenals in the hands of these lawless groups range from AK 47 to machine guns, rocket propelled grenades to rocket launchers. Perhaps more concerning is that recent attacks on military bases were done, using drones.

In series of attacks by Boko Haram/ISWAP members, the insurgents were reported to have deployed armed drones carrying locally made grenades that have killed and injured soldiers on the frontline, especially in Yobe State. But the greater danger is in the proliferation of small arms and light weapons (SALW) in the Lake Chad Basin. To put an end to the senseless and mindless violence that is widespread not only in the region but across the country, it is important to address this challenge.

It is reassuring that the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Christopher Musa, has told Nigerians that the military is taking the battle to the terrorists with sophisticated weapons recently purchased. “What we are witnessing here is an eclipse caused by pressure on terrorists in the Sahel region, forcing them to increase attacks in Nigeria, especially around the porous borders of the Lake Chad Basin,” Musa said last week. “We are working diligently to address these challenges.” But given the overwhelming level of insecurity in the region, proliferation of SALW is a serious problem that must first be tackled.

Sources of these dangerous weapons range from trafficking across porous land borders to leakages in lax import procedures that have encouraged black market arms traffickers. Since transactional kidnapping has emerged in recent times as an unofficial sub-sector of the economy, especially in Nigeria, families and friends of victims are being tasked to come up with ransoms in billions of Naira. The fact that guns are available everywhere contributes to the menace.

 Nigeria, according to most reports, accounts for at least 70 per cent of the illegal SALWs circulating within the West African sub-region most of them in the hands of sundry criminal cartels and lone wolves. It stands to reason that with access to abundant illegal weapons the rogue elements in our midst have become more fortified and hence less amenable to entreaties to make peace. Yet, as we have repeatedly pointed out, it was such easy access to SALWs by some unscrupulous elements that resulted in total breakdown of law and order in some of the failed states in Africa of which Somalia is a prime example.   

The task of protecting the people remains that of the state. But it is a task that can only be performed in tandem with strengthening the security of citizens to make illegal possession of firearms unattractive and unnecessary. Countries in the Lake Chad region must therefore proceed through a programme of illegal arms decommissioning and recovery plus the reinforcement of existing gun laws to penalise illegal possession of arms within their respective jurisdictions. It is not enough to be holding regular meetings to offer lamentations. There must be concrete actions to deal with the

 challenge of arms proliferation not only within the Lake Chad region but also in the country at large.