Bringing security and stability to Africa's most populous state

The people of Nigeria face a a complex array of security threats, all of them made worse by the availability of weapons. These include the Jihadist group Boko Haram and its offshoot, the Islamic State in West Africa, which remain the most serious threats, particularly in the northeast. These groups conduct attacks, kidnappings, and raids, which cause immense suffering to local communities.

There are also organised criminal gangs, these mostly in the northwest, who engage in kidnappings for ransom, banditry, and armed robbery. These activities have led to widespread insecurity and displacement of local people.

Desertification and poverty are also driving farmer-herder conflicts in Nigeria's Middle Belt and parts of northwest Nigeria, where violent clashes between farmers and herders are caused by competition for land, exacerbated by the spread of the Sahara and population growth.

Our work in Nigeria is in partnership with the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL).

HALO is working to identify at-risk storehouses for assessment and rehabilitation. With the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) and their EOD Command, HALO is conducting detailed risk assessments of NPF storehouses and will present findings directly to the authorities. HALO risk assessments are taking place across 18 states with recent explosive incidents or near-misses, or that the NPF have identified as at-risk.

The NPF’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal command lacks a structured curriculum and capacity to provide comprehensive training, but HALO is working with the NPF EOD Command to assess training needs and mentor personnel in explosive ordnance management and disposal. We hope to work with both the NPF and across the security sector to develop an inter-agency capacity to respond to explosives including training Nigerian security forces to meet international EOD standards, bringing them in line with the International Ammunition Technical Guidelines.

We are also working to train the Nigerian Police Force to counter weapons and ammunition diversion. We are training 65 police officers in safe weapons management, with 70 in training in mitigation of explosive ordnance.