Thread by @DefenseNigeria

Watching revelations from the Pandora Paper that focuses squarely on African leaders. One wonders why no one is shedding light on illegal weapons fueling conflicts across the continent. How many times have certain powers "mistakenly" handed over weapons to terrorist groups.

In Syria NATO airdropped weapons directly into the hands of ISIS. They said it was a mistake. The powers that be are illegally sell arms to fragile states they know will soon collapse, and when they collapse the region is flooded with weapons that fuel wars and suffering.

International Arms Treaty have failed to stop the illegal flow of weapons underground. Countries that need weapons are blindsided by human rights accusations, while militants group have easier access to arms without the bottlenecks that characterise western arms procurement.

Hate the government all you want, at least they are in some capacity accountable. Killing machines ending up in the hands of terrorists is bad news for the civilian population. We've seen footages of the Taliban flying American blackhawk helicopters. Innocent people are going

..to pay the price for years to come. Back on A-STAN, three weeks before withdrawing, the U.S provided more arms to A-STAN. They misjudged the situation. Today the Taliban has more helicopters than the Nigerian and South African airforces combined.

ENTER LIBYA

In five years the EU exported $835 million worth of arms to Gadaffi after an earlier arms embargo was lifted when he agreed to dismantle his chemical weapons program. This is a country that has the worlds 4th largest stockpile of

.ammunition, making the storage of these weapons an incredibly complex endeavour. When the Gadaffi regime fell, armed rebel groups seized the national stockpile of arms. So you now have the 4th largest stockpile of arms falling into the hands of terrorist groups.

Five months after the fall of Muammar Gadaffi militants, armed with heavy weaponry from Libya overthrew the Malian government.

The EU had legally exported these weapons to Libya.

12 years on Libya remains in a state of chaos. Why? because they are still selling arms to rebel factions. We've seen Javelin anti-tank missiles aquired from the U.S by the French army end up in the hands of Hafter's militant faction.

The UN recognized Libyan government provided a long list of weapons confiscated that the French aquired claiming it was for French military usage, but instead ended up with militant groups. Yet it did little to put pressure on them to stop arming rebel groups

To stem the flow of weapons, arms sales to Libya have been strictly controlled by sanctions and must be declared to the UN Security Council.

But the veto wielding Security Council members are the very countries selling the weapons to militant groups lol.

Its not just West Africa, in the Congo, C.A.R, Somalia, the Sahel nations etc countries are still selling arms to these countries without declaring them to the UN. Look at South Sudan. Ten years since independence the country is still plagued by violence and awashed with weapons

So think about it, African countries are finding it extremely difficult to aquire arms from the West. It took Nigeria eight years to secure 12 Super Tucanos, and we paid with our teeth. Militant groups on the other hand are able to secure weapons faster and at little cost.

The U.S will mosy likely never sell Javelin anti-tank guided missiles to any country in Sub Sahara Africa, yet militants in Libya were in possession of dozens of them.

In 2014 the International Arms Trade Treaty was created to stop weapons from ending up in the wrong hands

But once again signatories to the Arms Treaty are the once still selling arms despite the fact that they know the weapons are going to be used by repressive regimes or militant groups. Whats worse, Africa is testing ground used to advertise these weapons