The Chief of Defence Staff, Lucky Irabor, as said that 137 out of about 261 borders in the northeast and northwest regions of the country are unguarded.
Delivering a speech on “security, defense & development in Nigeria” at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA) in Lagos on Thursday, August 25, Irabor noted that the porous nature of the borders has made it easily accessible for terrorists and bandits to enter the country to commit mayhem.
“Our borders are largely unmanned. The penetrability of our vast unmanned land areas – the north-east and north-west zones, particularly Borno, Yobe, Sokoto, Zamfara, and Katsina states – with neighboring countries such as the Niger Republic and Chad among others has continued to be a key source of criminality and violent crimes in those parts of the country.
“The porous nature of the borders has made it easily accessible for terrorists and bandits to enter the country to commit mayhem. For instance, there are about 364 approved international border points in Nigeria with about 261 in the northeast and northwest regions. Out of these 261, only 124 are manned leaving the remaining 137 unmanned by security agencies. Intelligence suggests that violent actors are using some of these normal border points to move freely from countries into Nigeria to cause mayhem,” he said.
Irabor who recommends for use of technology as a tool in strengthening the Nigerian borders, erection of physical structures, and effective management, added that there is a need to have a broad-based integrated border management system to be established.
“So I am looking ahead, when we bring technology to bear in the management of our borders, in addition of course, to physical, structures that need to be established across the length of our borders, then we can contribute to the overall security of our land.
“We move to correct this but the point remains that a good number of borders remain unmanned”, he quoted.
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