Nigeria
Cluster Munition Ban Policy
Ten-Year Review: Nigeria signed the convention in June 2009 and said in September 2019 that ratification was awaiting parliamentary approval. Nigeria has participated in meetings of the convention, most recently in September 2019. It voted in favor of a key United Nations (UN) resolution promoting the convention in December 2019.
Nigeria is not known to have produced or exported cluster munitions, but has imported them and possesses a stockpile. In 2015–2016, Nigeria alleged that fighters from the non-state armed group Boko Haram have repurposed individual submunitions to use in improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
Policy
The Federal Republic of Nigeria signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 12 June 2009.
In September 2019, a Nigerian representative said that the convention was “before the National Assembly receiving necessary attention as stipulated by the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria” and will be “ratified as soon as the legislative processes are completed.”[1] Nigerian officials have often committed to ratify the convention.[2] There have been extensive stakeholder consultations on the matter of ratification.[3]
Nigeria participated in the Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions and joined in the consensus adoption of the convention text in Dublin in May 2008. It attended the Signing Conference in Oslo in December 2008 as an observer only and said it would sign after completing internal processes.[4] Nigeria subsequently signed the convention at the UN in New York in June 2009.
Nigeria has participated in several meetings of the convention, most recently the Ninth Meeting of States Parties in Geneva in September 2019, where it said it “remains deeply concerned” over the use of cluster munitions.[5]
Nigeria voted in favor of a key UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution promoting implementation and universalization of the convention in December 2019.[6] Nigeria has voted in favor of the annual UNGA resolution promoting the convention since it was first introduced in 2015.
Nigeria voted in favor of a 2014 UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution expressing concern at the use of cluster munitions in South Sudan.[7] Nigeria also voted in favor of a 2015 UNSC resolution on Sudan that expressed concern at evidence of cluster munition use in Darfur.[8]
Nigeria is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty. Nigeria is a signatory to the Convention on Conventional Weapons, but has not yet ratified it.
Use, production, and transfer
Nigeria is not known to have produced or exported cluster munitions, but imported them and may have used cluster munitions in the past.
Sierra Leone alleged that Nigerian peacekeepers participating in an Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) monitoring mission used cluster munitions in Sierra Leone in 1997, but the mission’s Force Commander, General Victor Malu, denied the allegation at the time.[9] In May 2012, Sierra Leone repeated the allegation and Nigeria repeated its denial again in September 2012, calling the finding “wrong and incorrect.”[10]
Stockpiling
The exact status and composition of Nigeria’s stockpiled cluster munitions is not known, but it has admitted to stockpiling United Kingdom (UK)-made BL755 cluster bombs.[11] In 2012, Nigeria requested technical assistance and support from States Parties to destroy the BL755 cluster bombs.[12] Nigeria again requested “cooperation and assistance” to fulfill its stockpile destruction obligations during the convention’s First Review Conference in Dubrovnik, Croatia in 2015.[13]
The Nigerian Armed Forces (Defence Headquarters) issued a public statement in 2015 warning about the threat posed by IEDs, which it alleged Boko Haram had improvised from submunitions removed from cluster munitions.[14] According to media reports, the cluster munitions could have been stolen from Nigerian military ammunition stocks or received from smugglers who obtained them from Libyan arms depots.[15]
Nigeria has not indicated whether it intends to retain any cluster munitions for research or training purposes.
[1] Statement of Nigeria, Convention on Cluster Munitions Ninth Meeting of States Parties, Geneva, 2 September 2019.
[2] Previously, in August 2016, government officials confirmed Nigeria’s intent to complete its ratification of the convention, but said the process had been slow due to a lack of prioritization. ICBL-CMC meeting with Tony Alonwu, Minister Counsellor, Permanent Mission of Nigeria to the UN in Geneva, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 5 August 2016. See also, statement of Nigeria, Convention on Cluster Munitions Fourth Meeting of States Parties, Lusaka, Zambia, September 2013; statement of Nigeria, Convention on Cluster Munitions Intersessional Meetings, Geneva, 18 April 2012; and statement of Nigeria, Convention on Cluster Munitions First Meeting of States Parties, Vientiane, Lao PDR, 10 November 2010. Notes by the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC).
[3] Statement of Nigeria, Convention on Cluster Munitions Third Meeting of States Parties, Oslo, Norway, 11 September 2012.
[4] For details on Nigeria’s policy and practice regarding cluster munitions through early 2009, see Human Rights Watch and Landmine Action, Banning Cluster Munitions: Government Policy and Practice (Ottawa: Mines Action Canada, May 2009), pp. 223–224.
[5] Statement of Nigeria, Convention on Cluster Munitions Ninth Meeting of States Parties, Geneva, 2 September 2019. Nigeria has participated in every Meeting of States Parties except in 2014 and 2017–2018. Nigeria attended the First Review Conference in Dubrovnik, Croatia in 2015, and intersessional meetings in 2011–2012 and 2014. Nigeria has also attended regional workshops on the convention, such as one held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in August 2016.
[6] “Implementation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions,” UN General Assembly (UNGA) Resolution 74/62, 12 December 2019.
[7] UN Security Council (UNSC), “Security Council, Adopting Resolution 2155 (2014), Extends Mandate of Mission In South Sudan, Bolstering Its Strength to Quell Surging Violence, SC11414,” 27 May 2014.
[8] UNSC Resolution 2228, 29 June 2015.
[9] According to sources close to the Sierra Leone military, in 1997 Nigerian forces operating as Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) peacekeepers dropped two cluster bombs on Lokosama, near Port Loko. See, ‘‘IRIN-WA Weekly Roundup’’, IRIN, 10 March 1997. Additionally, Nigerian ECOMOG peacekeepers were reported to have used French-produced BLG-66 Belouga cluster bombs in an attack on the eastern town of Kenema. See also, “10 Killed in Nigerian raid in eastern Sierra Leone,” Agence France-Presse (AFP), 11 December 1997.
[10] Statement of Sierra Leone, Accra Regional Conference on the Universalization of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, Accra, Ghana, 28 May 2012; and statement of Nigeria, Convention on Cluster Munitions Third Meeting of States Parties, Oslo, Norway, 11 September 2012.
[11] Statement of Nigeria, Convention on Cluster Munitions Intersessional Meetings, Geneva, 18 April 2012. Jane’s Information Group has reported that the Nigerian Air Force possesses BL755 cluster bombs. Robert Hewson, ed., Jane’s Air-Launched Weapons, Issue 44 (Surrey: Jane’s Information Group, 2004), p. 843.
[12] Statement of Nigeria, Convention on Cluster Munitions Third Meeting of States Parties, Oslo, Norway, 11 September 2012.
[13] See, for example, Croatia Progress Report, Convention on Cluster Munitions First Review Conference, Dubrovnik, Croatia, 6 October 2015.
[14] “Boko Haram has cluster bombs: Nigeria’s DHQ,” The News Nigeria, 8 October 2015. The Ministry of Defence did not name the type of cluster munitions depicted in photographs of the weapons that it said Nigerian Army engineers in Adamawa state recovered from arms caches found in areas contested by Boko Haram. However, the photographs showed submunitions from French-made BLG-66 cluster munitions, which is the same type of munition that Nigeria is alleged to have used in Sierra Leone in 1997.
[15] “‘Boko Haram cluster bombs’ may come from Nigerian military,” AFP, 13 October 2015. See also, Philip Obaji Jr., “Boko Haram’s Cluster-Bomb Girls,” The Daily Beast, 2 October 2016.