Buhari wants action on porous borders ― Naval Chief

President Muhammadu Buhari met with service chiefs on Tuesday with a charge to them to do something to check the porous borders in the country.

Chief of Naval Staff, Rear Admiral Ibok Ette Ibas disclosed this to State House correspondents at the end of the meeting at the presidential villa, Abuja, saying that an area of concern was the inflow of arms from the borders.

He said the option exists to embark on air surveillance to adequately police the porous borders.

He said: “Another area of concern was the arms inflow into the nation. It is only God perhaps that can police such an expanse of the border that we have.

“That is an area that Mr. President has directed that we do all that we can to ensure that we block the gaps and those security areas that we also need to address.

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“Solution, of course, is to identify other means and strategies of addressing the border porous nature. The military, of course, responsibility is to defend the country but there are other agencies of government that are responsible for manning the various border openings.

“An option perhaps is the surveillance in the air and other things are being considered.”

Ibas explained that Tuesday’s meeting was a further appraisal of the outcome previous meetings over the spate of insecurity in the country.

According to him, President Buhari is happy with the progress made so far in dealing with the menace.

He added: “I’m sure you will recall we met just about two weeks ago but the President has to call for this meeting given that tomorrow he will be sworn in. Of course basically, the meeting was a further reappraisal on the actions taken after the last meeting.

“You all recall to the spate of insecurity particularly armed banditry, kidnapping and robbery had been specified on the increase in some parts of the country.

“The briefings were to the effect that we had better responses from the military and security agencies in those areas that we have earlier mentioned

“This is particularly because of the improved synergy amongst the various agencies that are providing information and intelligence.

“Furthermore we have also had members of the public voluntarily offer information to the areas of the security challenges.

“I think on the whole Mr. President was happy with the security situation, the efforts that the armed forces and the security agencies are carrying out to tackle the security challenges.”