Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Christopher Musa last week identified two key challenges militating against the war against insecurity in the country. At a security summit in Abuja themed, “Renewed Hope Agenda: Citizens’ Engagement and National Security”, Musa rooted for the fencing of Nigeria’s borders as it will forestall the entrance of armed groups and reduce the escalating insecurity.
He also fingered good governance at the local level as a means of tackling the root causes of insecurity.
“Border management is very critical. We have countries that because of the level of insecurity in their country had to fence their borders”, he stated. The CDS cited the examples of Pakistan which fenced its 1,350 kilometres of border with Afghanistan and the 1,400-kilometre border between Saudi Arabia and Iraq which is completely fenced to buttress his point. According to him, it was after Pakistan fenced its border with Afghanistan that they had peace.
And he asked, “Can we start thinking of fencing our border, we have 1,500km with Niger Republic, 1,900km with Cameroon. Chad is there, all over us, we are surrounded by francophone countries. The Sahel is heating up; if the Sahel falls, it is Nigeria that they are interested in”.
This is perhaps, the first time in recent memory a top government official is coming up with the idea of fencing the borders with neighbouring countries. But that is not to imply that the multi-dimensional challenges facing the national economy due to the porosity of the borders have not long been recognised. Not at all.
Not with the penchant by the government to blame the socio-economic and security challenges confronting the country on illegal infiltration by foreigners into the country. One of the key arguments raised overtime to justify the so-called fuel subsidy removal was the unabating smuggling of fuel across the borders where it sells at higher prices, depriving the government of the needed revenue for development.
At the centre of all manner of smuggling in goods and services to neighbouring countries has been the inability of the government to effectively police the country’s extensive borders. According to a former minister of Interior, Abba Moro, as of 2013, “there were over 1,499 irregular/legal and 84 regular/legal officially identified entry routes into Nigeria”. The number could be quite higher given that there are other illegal routes and pathways not officially known to the government.
Even then, official knowledge of these illegal routes has not had any substantial impact on the illegal movement of goods, persons and services in and across the country. It has been difficult to effectively police the vast borders of the country in the absence of border fences, barriers and modern surveillance equipment.
Matters are not helped by thriving corruption among officials of the Nigerian Customs Services and other sister agencies that man the identified entry points into the country. Complications in identifying certain categories of foreigners due to affinities bordering on culture, language and religion constitute another serious challenge.
Fencing the borders is a good start to controlling the influx of aliens into the country. It is definitely an expensive venture given the vastness of the borders. But the idea is not to have all our borders fenced in one fell swoop. That could turn out a tall order.
The first step is to identify those borders that account for the highest traffic in terms of security challenges and smuggling and begin with them. In this regard, the borders in the Northeast from where terrorists strike and run into the neighbouring countries should be accorded top priority.
The current war against terrorism is replete with accounts of terrorists either of the Boko Haram, ISWAP or Lukarawa variant striking communities in the northeast and northwest only to return to their bases in neighbouring countries The fact that Nigeria is currently involved in joint security engagement with some of its neighbours in the fight against the Boko Haram insurgency reinforces the importance of gradual fencing of borders in those theatres of war.
This should be followed up with the fencing of those areas that are notorious for all manner of smuggling activities. Before then, the government should take quick measures to acquire modern sophisticated surveillance equipment for monitoring what goes on at the country’s borders.
A country unable to effectively monitor and control its borders cannot seriously lay claims to its sovereignty. Is it not sufficiently troubling that insurgency simulated and perfected in the Sahel region is easily deployed to kill, maim and destabilise the country? Ironically, our leaders are quick to blame the cascading insecurity on infiltrators from neighbouring countries as if we are helpless. Sometimes, the way these blames are traded mock the officials behind them.
A few years ago, when killings by the herdsmen and their despoliation of host communities went out of hand, the government was quick to lay the blame at the doorsteps of foreign herders. Former president, Muhammadu Buhari had in 2018, seven years after the death of Libyan leader, Muammar Ghaddafi, blamed him for the alarming dimension insecurity had assumed in Nigeria. He told the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby in London, that the arms Ghaddafi provided to his supporters had filtered into Nigeria where they are now being used to fuel killings across the north-central.
“These gunmen were trained and armed by Muammar Gaddafi of Libya. When he was killed, the gunmen escaped with their arms. We encountered some of them fighting with Boko Haram. Herdsmen we used to know carried only sticks and maybe a cutlass to clear the way, but these ones now carry sophisticated weapons” he had said.
Buhari may have brought the purported Libyan angle to cover up the Fulani herdsmen who have been serially accused in the killings in many communities especially in the north-central. Curiously, Libya shares no border with Nigeria and is not on record that it is destabilising its neighbours.
So, it is difficult to fathom how Ghaddafi could be blamed for the crimes committed by Fulani herdsmen or Boko Haram that originated from this country. It is possible to encounter guns from that country smuggled into our shores from neighbouring countries. It is possible to encounter other makes of sophisticated weapons in the hands of sundry criminals. But it will be wrong to attribute the crimes committed with such guns to the country they came from just like the ones our security agencies work with. At any rate, those fighting alongside Boko Haram may have been recruited by their sponsors, enablers and financiers whom we are told can be found among top politicians, government functionaries and the military. Borno State governor, Babagana Zulum repeated this accusation just recently.
But that is beside the point. The real issue here is that the relative ease with sundry criminals, arms and ammunitions flood the country is because of the porosity of our borders. Nigeria has vast and unmanned borders with at least four African countries. Some of these countries’ citizens share remarkable affinity with sections of the country and this blurs efforts to differentiate them. Little wonder the horde of foreigners lurking around the major cities undetected.
Apart from the security challenges it poses, there also socio-economic dimensions to it. That is why cross-border smuggling has gone on unabated depriving the country the resources to the tackle the crisis of multidimensional poverty that has been the sad tale of our citizens.
The CDS spoke of good governance at the local level as a veritable way of tackling insecurity. That goes without saying. The uncanny contradiction is how to actualise that high-minded objective when it has remained largely illusory at the state and national levels.
But that does not diminish the potency of the recommendation. It only reinforces the challenges on the way to tackling the cascading insecurity in the country. And since our leaders are in the habit of rationalising the cycle of insecurity on infiltration by foreigners, it is only proper that securing the borders with neighbouring countries is key to winning the war against terrorism and cross border smuggling. That would seem the heuristic value of the CDS intervention. Whether the leadership can muster the political will to see this through, is another ballgame.
