Policy

The Federal Republic of Nigeria acceded to the Mine Ban Treaty on 27 September 2001, and the treaty entered into force for the country on 1 March 2002.

Nigeria has stated since 2004 that it is in the process of enacting national legislation to implement the treaty. In its last Article 7 report, submitted in 2012, Nigeria again stated, “Domestication of MBT [Mine Ban Treaty] is in progress,” as it had also noted in its 2009 and 2010 reports.[1] Nigeria has not submitted any further Article 7 reports since 2012.

The current status of national implementation legislation is not known. In September 2013, the Monitor was informed that a committee on international humanitarian law was considering the status of international instruments that Nigeria is party to or has yet to join. While consultations were ongoing, the implementing legislation for the Mine Ban Treaty had not yet been sent by the committee to parliament.[2] In 2006, Nigeria reported that an implementation bill was undergoing its first reading in the National Assembly.[3]

Nigeria attended the convention’s Fourth Review Conference in Oslo in November 2019, where it provided its first update on new use of landmines by a non-state armed group (NSAG). Nigeria did not attend the intersessional meetings held online in June–July 2020.

It is unclear if Nigeria is in violation of its Article 5 obligations from any residual contamination from the Biafran Civil War. In 2004, Nigeria did not report any contamination in its initial Article 7 report. Subsequent Article 7 reports suggest contamination was periodically cleared in areas associated with the Biafran Civil War. In October 2017, the Economic Community of Western African States (ECOWAS) Court of Justice awarded 88 billion Naira (US$242.4 million) in damages against the federal government for its failure to clear landmines and other explosive remnants of war (ERW) remaining from the civil war in the southeast of the country. In a consent judgment, the court ordered the federal government to commence clearance within 45 days. Landmine victims had launched the legal case against the Nigerian government at the ECOWAS Court in 2012, requesting the court to order the Nigerian government to act on explosive hazards remaining in 11 states within the country.[4] In May 2019, Nigeria stated at the intersessional meetings that “as soon as security conditions permit, non-technical survey of antipersonnel mines, anti-vehicle mines, Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) will commence in Nigeria’s three most conflict affected states, Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa and this will enable us to provide necessary information on the discovery of any contamination from antipersonnel mines, including victim-activated IEDs.”[5]

Nigeria has signed, but not ratified, both the Convention on Cluster Munitions and the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW).

Use

Boko Haram militants have used landmines, improvised landmines, and other types of IEDs in attacks, primarily in the northeast of Nigeria. Nigeria has not provided an Article 7 report since 2012, which would update States Parties regarding any new mine use within the country.

At the Mine Ban Treaty’s Fourth Review Conference, Nigeria stated that NSAGs had been producing and using antipersonnel landmines of an improvised nature in the northeast of the country. Nigeria stated that due to insecurity it had been unable to conduct a comprehensive survey to determine the extent of the contamination in the most affected states of Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa. Nigeria has constituted an Inter-Ministerial Committee to develop a National Mine Action Strategy and to prepare a work plan for survey and clearance. Nigeria has stated that it “wishes to comply with the obligations of the APMBC [Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention], namely preparing an updated Article 7 transparency report and by developing an Article 5 extension request to work audaciously towards the clearance of all mined areas in order to meet the 2025 Convention deadline. The Committee’s preliminary investigation has discovered the use of victim-activated Improvised Explosive Devices which fall under the definition of AP [Anti-Personnel] mines according to the Convention. It is expected that the Committee’s Article 7 report will provide details on all suspected and confirmed improvised landmine contamination areas.”[6]

In August 2019, Mines Advisory Group (MAG) documented 393 incidents and recoveries of improvised landmines attributed to Boko Haram over the previous three years, throughout Borno state and in areas of Yobe and Adamawa states.[7] Previously, in September 2018, MAG stated that there was evidence of significant new use of landmines by Boko Haram and its splinter groups. MAG reported that locally-manufactured antipersonnel landmines were used on roads, fields, and within villages, mostly in Borno state, but also in Yobe and Adamawa.[8] In April 2017, the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) reported “extensive use of simple pressure plate activated IEDs on main supply routes, effectively as very large de facto landmines. There are reports of significant use of IEDs around Boko Haram held areas, with the use of multiple IEDs and anti-handling devices.”[9] In June 2017, UNMAS stated that contamination by improvised mines laid by Boko Haram factions also threatened communities in nearby areas of the Lake Chad Basin.[10] In May 2020, the Nigeria Security Index reported that 99% of the attacks by Boko Haram over a 10-year period used landmines and other explosive devices, but did not differentiate by type.[11]

Since 2016, Nigeria has experienced several incidents appearing to involve improvised antipersonnel mines.[12] On 18 March 2019, eight people in a vehicle were killed by a roadside mine near Warabe village in Borno state.[13] In June 2019, the Nigerian Army published photographs of two pressure plate-activated explosive devices encountered during counter-insurgency activities in Borno State.[14] On 6 March 2018, four loggers were killed when they stepped on landmines left by Boko Haram near Dikwa, 90km east of Maiduguri in Borno state. The loggers had gone to retrieve a vehicle abandoned the previous day following a Boko Haram ambush.[15] On 21 August 2017, at least two cattle farmers were killed and three severely injured when they stepped on a landmine while traveling to Biu, Borno state. The civilians were apparently attempting to flee a Boko Haram ambush and were running across fields when they triggered the landmine, which was allegedly planted by the insurgents.[16]

In 2016, a technical expert working for the Norwegian Refugee Council provided the Monitor with photographs and technical characteristics of Boko Haram-made, victim-activated improvised landmines that are triggered by a pressure plate. The expert alleged the technology was transferred to Boko Haram from Al-Shabaab in Somalia.[17]

Previously, in August 2015, Colonel Sani Usman, the spokesperson of the Nigerian Army, was reported to have stated that the army had cleared landmines planted by Boko Haram militants from the Gwoza-Yamteke road in Borno state. He said the militants converted chemistry laboratories at the Dikwa School of Agriculture into bomb-making factories when they seized the town.[18] The Nigerian Army released a series of photographs showing its engineers removing items planted along the Gwoza-Yamteke highway.[19] In August 2016, a Nigerian media outlet reported that the army was involved in clearing Boko Haram landmines.[20] (See Nigeria’s mine action profile for more details). That month, the Nigerian Army reportedly arrested five Boko Haram militants who were alleged to be laying landmines.[21]

Production, transfer, and stockpiling

In June 2018, the Nigerian Army offered a 5 million Naira (US$13,800) reward, via public radio in the northeast of the country, for any information regarding the location of any IED factories.[22] In 2009 and 2010, Nigeria reported the past production of what it described as “conventional [antipersonnel] landmines” that were victim-activated and attached a photograph of what it said was a “Biafran fabricated landmine (OGBUNIGWE) used during the Nigerian Civil War 1967–70.”[23] Nigeria has stated that it has not acquired or used antipersonnel mines since the 1967–1970 Biafra War. Nigeria has denied allegations that its ECOWAS troops used mines in the 1990s in Liberia and Sierra Leone.[24]

In February 2001, the Chief of Operations of the Nigerian Army reported to the Monitor that Nigeria had destroyed its antipersonnel mines remaining after the Biafra War, and had not retained any for training or development purposes.[25] In May 2002, however, Nigeria presented photographs to the Standing Committee on Stockpile Destruction showing that antipersonnel mines were among munitions involved in a January 2002 fire and explosion at the Ammunition Transit Depot in Ikeja Cantonment, Lagos.[26]

In its initial Article 7 transparency report, submitted in 2004, Nigeria declared a stockpile of 3,364 Dimbat mines for research and training.[27] In 2005, Nigeria reported that all of its retained mines had been destroyed.[28] Nigeria stated in 2007, “With the completion of these destruction exercises, we are able to report that there are no more anti-personnel mines on Nigeria soil.”[29] However, in 2009, Nigeria reported 3,364 “British made AP mines” as retained for training and also stated that it had destroyed 9,786 stockpiled “British made AP landmines” in 2005.[30] In 2010 and again in 2012, Nigeria continued to list retaining 3,364 “British and Czechoslovakian made AP Landmine[s]” but did not specify the types.[31]