Nigeria
Cluster Munition Ban Policy
UPDATE 01.03.2023: On 28 February, Nigeria deposited the instrument of ratification to the Convention on Cluster Munitions, meaning the convention will enter into force for the country on 1 August 2023.
Summary
Nigeria signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions in June 2009 and a process is underway to ratify it. Nigeria has participated in several meetings of the convention, most recently in May 2022. Nigeria voted in favor of a key United Nations (UN) resolution promoting the convention in December 2021.
Nigeria is not known to have produced or exported cluster munitions, but it has imported them. Nigeria has sought support and technical assistance to destroy its stockpiled cluster munitions.
Policy
The Federal Republic of Nigeria signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 12 June 2009.
In June 2021, the Federal Executive Council reportedly approved ratification of the convention, but the current status of this process is not known.[1] Nigerian officials, over the past decade, have expressed the government’s intent to ratify the convention and have held extensive stakeholder consultations on the matter.[2]
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 Oslo Signing Conference in December 2008 as an observer only, and said that it would sign the convention after completing internal processes.[3] Nigeria subsequently signed the convention at the UN in New York in June 2009.
Nigeria has participated as an observer at several of the convention’s formal meetings, most recently the Second Review Conference in September 2021. At the convention’s intersessional meetings in May 2022, Nigeria provided a report on the universalization workshop that it hosted in Abuja in March 2022.[4]
Nigeria voted in favor of a key United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution promoting implementation and universalization of the convention in December 2021.[5] 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 Security Council resolution expressing concern at the use of cluster munitions in South Sudan.[6] Nigeria also voted in favor of a 2015 Security Council resolution on Sudan that expressed concern at evidence of cluster munition use in Darfur.[7]
Nigeria is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It has signed, but not ratified, the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW).
Use, production, and transfer
Nigeria is not known to have produced or exported cluster munitions, but has imported them.
Nigeria has denied allegations that it 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. The mission’s commander, General Victor Malu, denied the accusation at the time.[8] Sierra Leone repeated the allegations in May 2012, and Nigeria repeated its denial again in September 2012, describing the claim as “wrong and incorrect.”[9]
The Nigerian Armed Forces warned in 2015 about the threat from improvised explosive devices (IEDs). It alleged that Boko Haram, a non-state armed group (NSAG), had made IEDs from submunitions that had been removed from cluster munitions.[10]
Stockpiling
Nigeria stockpiles cluster munitions, including United Kingdom (UK)-made BL755 cluster bombs.[11]
In 2012, Nigeria requested technical assistance and support from States Parties to destroy its cluster munition stocks.[12] Nigeria reiterated its need for cooperation and assistance to fulfill its stockpile destruction obligations during the convention’s First Review Conference in 2015.[13]
Nigeria has not indicated whether it will retain any cluster munitions for research or training purposes.
[1] Email from Mimidoo Achakpa, Coordinator, International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) Women’s Network Nigeria, 23 June 2021.
[2] Previously, in September 2019, Nigeria 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.” Statement of Nigeria, Convention on Cluster Munitions Ninth Meeting of States Parties, Geneva, 2 September 2019. See also, statement of Nigeria, Convention on Cluster Munitions Third Meeting of States Parties, Oslo, 11 September 2012; statement of Nigeria, Convention on Cluster Munitions Fourth Meeting of States Parties, Lusaka, 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, 10 November 2010. Notes by the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC).
[3] For details on Nigeria’s policy and practice regarding cluster munitions through early 2009, see Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Landmine Action, Banning Cluster Munitions: Government Policy and Practice (Ottawa: Mines Action Canada, May 2009), pp. 223–224.
[4] Statement of Nigeria, Convention on Cluster Munitions intersessional meetings, Geneva, 16 May 2022.
[5] “Implementation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions,” UNGA Resolution 76/47, 6 December 2021.
[6] Security Council, “Security Council, Adopting Resolution 2155 (2014), Extends Mandate of Mission In South Sudan, Bolstering Its Strength to Quell Surging Violence,” 27 May 2014.
[7] Security Council, “UNSC Resolution 2228 (2015),” 29 June 2015.
[8] 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, “10 Killed in Nigerian raid in eastern Sierra Leone,” Agence France-Presse (AFP), 11 December 1997.
[9] Statement of Sierra Leone, Accra Regional Conference on the Universalization of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, Accra, 28 May 2012; and statement of Nigeria, Convention on Cluster Munitions Third Meeting of States Parties, Oslo, 11 September 2012.
[10] “Boko Haram has cluster bombs: Nigeria’s DHQ,” The News Nigeria, 8 October 2015. The Ministry of Defense did not name the type of cluster munitions depicted in photographs that it released 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. 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. See, “‘Boko Haram cluster bombs’ may come from Nigerian military - campaigners,” AFP, 13 October 2015; and Philip Obaji Jr., “Boko Haram’s Cluster-Bomb Girls,” The Daily Beast, 2 October 2016.
[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. See, 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, 11 September 2012.
[13] See, for example, Croatia Progress Report, Convention on Cluster Munitions First Review Conference, Dubrovnik, 6 October 2015.