The W-Arly-Pendjari (WAP) Complex is a vast wildlife sanctuary spanning the intersecting borders of Benin, Burkina Faso and Niger. With one of the most diverse ecosystems in West Africa’s savanna belt, it is a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization World Heritage Site and shelters threatened species such as cheetah, giraffe, wild dog, elephant, lion and leopard.
But the WAP’s million hectares of remote landscape is also a hub for organised transnational crimes, including the trafficking of weapons, drugs and people.
Weapons smuggling is the most prolific illegal activity in the WAP, says Dr Juliana Abena Appiah from the University of Ghana’s Legon Centre for International Affairs and Diplomacy. These illicit activities, mainly carried out by armed groups and supported by rugged terrain and porous borders, fuel instability and violence beyond the park’s boundaries.
The flow of weapons and ammunition entering the region facilitates terrorism, poaching, banditry and communal violence, fuelling a cycle of insecurity and crime. Arms trafficking is also intertwined with Sahelian conflicts, which Hassane Koné, a senior researcher in the Institute for Security Studies’ Sahel Programme, says are driven by ethnic tensions, jihadist insurgencies and criminality.
These extremist groups are the main criminal actors of arms trafficking in the region, says Koné. They include Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, Ansaroul Islam, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Islamic State Sahel Province. Trafficked weapons include assault rifles, light machine guns and pistols, with armed groups favouring AK-47s for their firepower and portability.
Fidel Amakye Owusu, a security analyst from the Conflict Research Consortium for Africa, told ENACT that local criminal networks supply arms to the highest bidder, using motorbikes and animals to move large quantities of weapons along paths through the bush. Current and former militants, professional transporters and corrupted security force members use their knowledge of the region’s rough terrain to buy, sell and transport firearms.
Weapons enter the WAP’s illicit market through various channels. Most are diverted from government stores, Appiah says, and from poorly guarded stockpiles. Benin is both a destination and transit country. Niger serves as a transit zone for arms from Libya en route to Mali.
Regional governments are committed to halting the flow of weapons, though Owusu believes that efforts to manage stockpiles, enforce laws and control arms transfers remain inadequate.
Government responses to arms smuggling in the WAP have been mainly militarised. In 2014, the African Union authorised a Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) comprising Benin, Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria to address trans-border crimes exacerbated by arms trafficking and create a safe environment in terror-affected areas.
Niger withdrew from the MNJTF after the July 2023 coup, which Owusu says has led to more weapons flowing through the WAP into the Sahel.
While the MNJTF remains active at a low level, international support shifted to another option. In February 2017, France, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger launched the G5 Sahel Force with the support of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to combat insurgencies and arms trafficking in the Sahel, including the WAP.
However, accusations of French dominance led to the suspension of the force following the withdrawal of Mali in May 2022, followed by Niger and Burkina Faso in December 2023. Chad and Mauritania announced the alliance’s termination on 6 December 2023.
In April 2023, with political support from ECOWAS, the United Nations deployed the Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali directed by the French-led Task Force Takuba. However, security in the WAP and Sahel did not improve.
United States aid to the MNJTF and G5 Sahel also failed, with anti-West protests and the region’s intractable conflicts forcing Western countries to pull back from the Sahel. Mali then turned to Russia’s Wagner Group to help combat extremists and address insecurity. But this hasn’t stopped arms from flowing through the WAP, says Dr Edmund Foley, head of the Public Law Department at Ghana’s Institute of Management and Public Administration.
In September 2023, Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger signed the Liptako-Gourma Charter, forming the Alliance of Sahel States. This was partly to fill the vacuum left by the G5 and in response to a potential ECOWAS intervention after Niger’s July 2023 coup and the dissolution of the G5. By January 2024, all three states had withdrawn from ECOWAS.
The fight against arms trafficking and insecurity in the WAP and Sahel also led to the 2017 Accra Initiative, promoting joint military operations and intelligence sharing between Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali and other West African countries. In 2022, the Accra Initiative proposed a 10 000-strong Multinational Joint Task Force comprising Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Niger and Togo. Funding is vital to prevent this venture from failing.
In March 2024, an Accra Initiative delegation visited Maiduguri in northern Nigeria – an area that has been on the front line of violent extremism in Nigeria – to study the Borno Model, a post-conflict reconciliation programme that offers quick amnesty to Boko Haram militants who surrender to the military. However, Foley says there are concerns over its applicability in the highly profitable trafficking environment of the WAP.
Initiatives targeting arms trafficking specifically remain limited in the WAP Complex, despite clear links between arms traffickers, organised criminals, jihadist groups and insurgents. Regional and international actors, like ECOWAS and the European Union, have focused on security-centric responses with little success.
While strengthening regional cooperation, intelligence sharing, border patrols and targeted search missions would help stem the illicit arms flow in the WAP, security responses should form just one part of a broader intervention addressing the drivers of supply and demand of illicit arms.
While addressing social and economic vulnerabilities, supporting community mediation and promoting good governance are crucial, schemes like the Sahel Resilience Project offer a pathway forward. This ambitious initiative aims to concretely tackle interconnected challenges in the region, including youth unemployment, food insecurity and the impacts of climate change, all of which contribute to the conditions that fuel insecurity.
However, the project faces significant challenges, including slow disbursement of funds, coordination issues between implementing partners and ongoing security threats that hinder effective implementation. Overcoming these hurdles will be critical to ensure the project's success in building resilience and contributing to long-term peace and stability in the WAP region.
Dr Feyi Ogunade, Regional Organised Crime Observatory Coordinator, West Africa
Image: PIUS UTOMI EKPEI / AFP
