Pan-Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere, has described the disclosure last Thursday by the Chief of Defence Staff General Lucky Irabor that more than half of the borders in the North East and North West zones are unguarded as worrisome because of the immense danger it poses to the security of Nigerians.
Afenifere, in a statement signed by its national publicity secretary, Comrade Jare Ajayi, expressed regret that less than a year to the end of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, the government was yet to take necessary steps on what the defence chief considered as “a key source of criminality and violent crimes in those parts of the country”.
General Irabor who delivered a lecture on “Security, Defence and Development in Nigeria” at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA) in Lagos confirmed that “our borders are largely unmanned.” He revealed that 137 of the 261 borders in the North East and North West regions of the country were unguarded.
Afenifere recalled President Buhari’s expression of concern “on the rise in insecurity” at this year’s Democracy Day on June 12, 2022, as well as his declaration that his government is “working hard to contain and address these challenges.”
“Taken the president’s declaration and that of the Chief of Staff together, one finds it difficult not to wonder what the administration has been doing in the last seven years if this is the period that the government is “working hard to contain and address” security challenges in the country.
“As we all know, the administration has less than one year to wind up. What have the security agencies been doing about the vast unmanned borders and what has the government been doing for insecurity to keep rising as its years in the saddle increase?” Afenifere queried.
“We are raising this issue because, if the borders have always been so porous, security agencies and the past governments had always managed to checkmate would-be criminals and terrorists from infiltrating the country. The infiltration began during former President Goodluck’s administration but got accentuated during the reign of the incumbent President Buhari. What went wrong? How? Why wait till now before thinking of employing technology to man the borders as indicated by the Chief of Defence Staff in his speech at the NIIA?” Afenifere fumed.
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