Book review: Border security and the Nigerian dilemma

A Review of Border Security and Governance in Africa; essays in honour of Professor Anthony I. Asiwaju.

Nigeria is confronted with grave security crisis threatening its corporate existence. The political will to contain the deplorable situation and arrest the nation’s seeming descend into total anarchy is wantonly lacking, and the polity is riddled with war tunes. Experts have opined that since the attainment of independence from the British, the country has not been compromised as it is today. Terrorism, banditry and the formation of ethnic militias across the country have become the order of the day. Nigeria is witnessing what many have described as a colossal failure of government to honour its fundamental obligation of securing the lives and properties of its citizens.

Consequently, at the heart of the insecurity debacle and discourse in Nigeria is the question of border security and ungoverned spaces as routes via which criminal elements and terrorism gain inroad into the country.

Terrorist activities in Mali, Libya and the Sahel had been said to portend grave implications for Nigeria and West Africa at large due to the region’s susceptibility to extremist religious views. Today, the projections have become more manifest than they were ten years ago.

Terrorism in Nigeria is said to be perpetuated by mercenary forces with roots in Libya and Mali where their Nigerian counterparts received armed training previously in preparation for the “jihad” that is happening today.

The above summation contextualizes the foregrounding ideas dissected in the book, Border Security and Governance in Africa: Essays in Honour of Professor Anthony I. Asiwaju, edited by Chris M.A Kwaja, Kemi Okenyodo and Willie A. Eselebor. Emeritus Professor Asiwaju is a revolutionary historian and border studies expert whose pioneering works in the field in Africa have become generic reference sources, for academic inquiries on border security in Africa.

The 129-page book published by the Rule of Law and Empowerment Initiative also known as Partners West Africa (PWAN) in 2021, is a conglomeration of brilliant border studies, historians, governance and development experts. Their scholarly interventions provide holistic perspectives on border management and the security reality in Nigeria today.

The book was first conceived in 2019 to celebrate the legacies of the Emeritus Professor Asiwaju when he turned 80 years old, but was eventually published in 2021 when he turned 82 years old. The diversity and caliber of the book’s contributors attest to Emeritus Professor Asiwaju’s towering image and impact in the field of border studies in Nigeria and Africa at large.

It is a collage of engagement with the nation’s dilemma with the hope of providing the government with scientific solutions to its insecurity crisis.

It is a book that should be read by every government official and security operatives as it would provide them with the root causes and solutions to the challenges the country is facing.

One of the critical questions that readily comes to mind as one reads the book is that, how is it that Nigeria and Africa is in the quagmire that it is in today if its scholars have carried out such formidable researches into the problems of the continent? Africa cannot advance out of its development poverty if it keeps ignoring its intelligentsia who take their time to diagnoseand proffer solutions to continent’s problems. This book is exemplary in its diagnosis of the security challenges in Africa, and it goes further to determine the viable means of stemming the ugly tide before its consumes us all.

Ufiem M. Ogbonnaya in his paper, “ECOWAS Border Management Policy,” posits that, “while there exist over 3,000 illegal entry points from Benin into Nigeria and vice versa. Across these over 3,000 illegal entry points, transnational criminal activities of organised and unorganised nature take place and over 70 percent of the crime and criminality that occur(s) in Nigeria take{s}root from these illegal entry points (NIPSS, 2018)”(p.33).

The 1979 adoption of the ECOWAS Protocol of Free Movement was a noble idea intended to bride economic gaps and foster unity among the peoples of the region, however, the free movement of goods and persons across the borders has facilitated the proliferation of arms and crimes within the region as a result of the absence of border security and management.

Rufus T. Akinyele in his paper, “Trans-Border Crimes and Community Policing in Africa,” discuss the attendant consequences of ungoverned territories and porous borders, and the need for community policing around borderlands in Africa.

Akinyele posits that, “the concept of community policing must be implemented in the context of the social and cultural organisations of the people to be successful. While the homogeneity of Africa borderlands strongly suggests that the concept of community policing can be applied there, the barriers effect on the border indicates that the approach will have to be trans-boundary in nature” (p.49).

On African states’ capacity to manage their borders in order to checkmate criminal activities and the implications of mercenary invasion of another country, Chris M.A Kwaja in his paper, “African Borders, Mercenaries and Foreign Fighters,” opines that, “The growing threats posed by transnational crimes and criminal groups, intra and inter-state conflicts, human trafficking, illicit flow of arms, forced migration, the activities of mercenaries and foreign fighters among others, raises serious concerns about the capacity of the African states to effectively secure and manage borders” (p.70).

It is quite instructive that there have been several discussions about the use of mercenaries in the execution of the attacks in Benue State, which was largely a response to the government’s enactment of an anti-open grazing law in the state. The formation of regional organisations like ECOWAS may have fostered trade and integration in the West African region, it however has not translated into effective management of borders and security in the region. Willie Eselebor in his paper, “Borders and National Security in West Africa,” captures this reality thus, “The voluntary merger of sovereign independent states into a political and economic union has not translated into a coordinated system of external borders controls. Similarly, the reduction in internal border control portends greater security threats” (p.83).

Kemi Okenyodo’s paper, “Terrorism and the Lake Chad Region,” contextualizes the humanitarian dilemma caused by Boko Haram and ISWAP in the region since 2009. She provides a historiographical, demographical and topological insights on the the region, and its ethnographical make up. Hers is an extensive forecast of the peculiarities of the of the Lake Chad region and the need for the governments to take charge and effectively govern the region in order to confer on it the status of a governed territory as a means of making it less prone to insurgent endearment of its inhabitants.

The book is in honour of Emeritus Professor Asiwaju, whose feats in the field of border studies in Africa is unrivaled.

There is no honour that can be greater than the expression of thoughts in one’s honour especially critical thoughts poised to reshape the future of a people in delirium. Hussaini Abdu’s description of Professor Asiwaju’s exploits in the field of border studies is instructive, “Professor Asiwaju is one of the leading scholars in this field. His works have not only brought to the fore the historical forces that created this situation, it has also exposed the challenges of border communities across Africa. This is a significant book with great historical importance.”

It is also important to note at this junction that, an otherwise brilliant book by some of Nigeria’s finest scholars in the field of border studies is inundated with many editorial lapses that cut across typographical, semantical, grammatical and structural issues. One would have expected that such a high work would have undergone series of professional editing to avert the obvious errors found in the book. For example, although the book is supposed to be made up of chapters, it has no chapters even though in some of the papers, the authors make reference to chapters as in, “This chapter looks at…”. Also, Kemi Okenyodo’s paper is the only one whose paragraphs are indented while the rest of the other papers are aligned right and left respectively. The indentation stands out in the book which makes her paper to look awkward among the rest of the contributions.

Furthermore, here are a few more examples, this sentence, “This not only brought to the fore” in the foreword is wrong, it should have been written this way, “This did not only bring to the fore”, or “This brought to the fore”. Another is, historiography is spelt as “historography” in Hussaini Abdu’s abstract (p.12), exist is spelt as “exits” in Ogbonnaya’s overview (p.33), this sentence, “Despite a recognition” ought to be “Despite the recognition”, and “African remain” ought to be “Africa remains”, “African borders and becoming” ought to be “African borders are becoming”, ‘The tools were aimed fostering” ought to be “The tools were aimed at fostering’, and “One major feature of these conflicts” ought to be “One of the major features of these conflicts”, these are found in Kwaja’s introduction. Even though the book was published in 2021 when Professor Asiwaju turned 82 years as against the original intention to publish it in 2019 he was 80 years old, the foreword would have been edited accordingly to reflect the new age. There is no doubt that this very important book would need a second edition soon to correct the errors in the first.

Paul Liam is a poet, critic and author.