AN EVALUATION OF THE IMPACT OF SMALL ARMS AND LIGHT WEAPONS ON AFRICAN SECURITY STRUCTURE
Jibrin Ubale Yahaya, A. N Liman & A. Y Adadu
Department of political science Nasarawa State University, Keffi
Dean, Faculty of Social Science, Nasarawa State University, Keffi
Director Consult, Nasarawa State University, Keffi
ABSTRACT
The wide availability of illegal small arms and light weapons in the hand of criminals is one of the fundamental problem affecting the peace and security not only to Africa in particular but to the entire global world communities. The paper examine the dangers posed by proliferation of small arms and light weapons like insurgency, militancy, arm bandit, criminal hijackings and evaluate the efforts by global institutions, regional bodies and national structures on combating the menace which has not address the problem so far .The paper propose alternative ways of how to address the problem of Small arms and Light weapons at various level , the paper also further investigate, the failure of security agencies, level of society poverty, high number of unemployed youth, corruption in governance and porous borders are some of the factors that led to the proliferation of small arms and light weapons in Africa. The paper has the position for Africa as a region to get rid of this problem, security agents must be empowered, fighting poverty , corruption and effective border management must be one of the major security frame-work to be truly implemented at Global, Regional and National level to fight down the menace of small arms and Light weapons proliferation in Africa.
Keywords: Small Arms, Light Weapons, National Security Proliferation.
