Nigeria

The establishment of both the National Humanitarian Mine Action Committee (NHMAC) and the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention (APMBC) Inter-Ministerial Committee as mine action authorities hads raised concerns about potential overlaps in the management of Nigeria’s national mine action programme. In 2024, a National Coordinator was appointed for the National Mine Action Centre (NMAC), which is in the process of being established and has the mandate for the management of mine action in Nigeria. At the time of writing, however, Nigeria had not yet submitted its Article 7 report for covering 2023, leaving both the extent of anti-personnel (AP) mine contamination and clearance by the Nigerian security forces unclear.

At the Fourth APMBC Review Conference in 2019, Nigeria acknowledged, for the first time since declaring itself free of AP mines eight years earlier, that it was facing contamination from improvised explosive devices (IEDs) that meet the APMBC’s definition of AP mines. In response, Nigeria requested a new Article 5 deadline and submitted an Article 7 report while initiating the establishment of a national mine action programme. This remains in its early stages, though, and significant progress is needed before the programme becomes fully operational.

• Nigeria should ensure the new NMAC is able to effectively to coordinate land release activities.
• Nigeria should develop a national mine action strategy that includes realistic goals for land release and criteria for the prioritisation of tasks.
• Nigeria should establish a central mine action database providing humanitarian agencies timely access to data on the location, type, and extent of mined areas.
• Nigeria should, as a matter of urgent priority, build mine survey and clearance capacities and use land release terminology in a manner consistent with international standards.
• Nigeria should expedite the preparation and official adoption of national mine action legislation.

Click here to download the "Clearing the Mines 2024" report for Nigeria.