Of porous borders and terrorist killings

RECENTLY,  the governor of Benue State, Hyacinth Alia, attributed the recent wave of violence in the state to foreigners, suggesting the attackers are not Nigerians based on their language, appearance and tactics. According to the governor, who spoke during an appearance on Channels Television,  the ongoing assaults in the state are unprecedented and alarming, and the attackers differ significantly from traditional herders previously linked to communal conflicts. His words: “Let’s have the narrative very correct. We know Nigerians by our ethnicities. We can identify a Fulani man, a Yoruba man, a Hausa man; we know them. Even the regular traditional herders, we know them. They work with cows, herding with sticks. But these folks [the attackers] are coming in fully armed with AK-47s and 49s. They do not bear the Nigerian look. They don’t speak like we do. Even the Hausa they speak is one sort of Hausa. Their Hausa is not the normal Hausa we Nigerians speak. So it is with the Fulani they speak. There is a trend in the language they speak, and some of our people who understand what they speak give it names. They say they are Malians and different from our people. But they are not Nigerians.” The governor also said that the current crisis represents a more dangerous phase of violence. As he noted, some parts of Benue State share porous borders with Cameroon, creating vulnerabilities that may be exploited by these armed groups, even as suspected terrorist hideouts had been identified in neighbouring Taraba and Nasarawa states, as well as in border regions of Cameroon.

The view that foreign terrorists consistently take advantage of Nigeria’s borders is of course not new. In February  2016, the then Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Solomon Arase, averred that most of the herdsmen fomenting trouble in Nigeria were foreigners, specifically from Mali and Chad, arguing that cattle rustlers were able to gain entry into Nigeria with their cattle as a result of the country’s porous borders. Speaking during an interactive session with stakeholders at the Officers’ Mess in Akure, Ondo State, Arase said: “We should also know about the history of migration. Most of these herdsmen are not Nigerians. They are people from Mali and Chad, who came into our system. That is why we have to be very careful. Our borders are very porous.” Arase’s views were echoed in April 2018 by a crisis and security management consultant, Colonel Bude Okafor (retd.) According to Okafor, terrorist herdsmen were being moved into Nigeria through its porous borders from Niger, Chad, Mali, Togo and other neighbouring countries where their activities had been proscribed. Okafor, who spoke to journalists in Awka, Anambra State,  said: “You should ask yourselves why the Fulani herdsmen who we all know, and who have always been with us for as long as we can remember, have suddenly turned violent. They have backers within the government. Fulani herdsmen had been with us but never as deadly as this. These people we see are not Nigerians.”

In recent times, the Federal Government has taken some steps to secure the country’s borders. For instance, in February, the Federal Government deployed an e-border solution in 40 percent of the country’s borders.  According to the Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, who disclosed this in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, during a media parley, the move was part of efforts to improve the security of lives and property of those living in Nigeria, as the technological innovation would go a long way in helping the country to adequately monitor its borders. Saying that a secure border ensures a safe nation, the minister added that newly acquired vehicles had been deployed to improve border management.  The minister also said Nigeria had  adopted Advance Passenger Information (API) and Passenger Name Records (PNR) to streamline traveller identification management and facilitate border management, adding that with the commissioning of the command and control, technology and innovation centre at the NIS headquarters, “there is real-time monitoring of our land border and all entry ports of all airports, everything.”

In spite of these efforts, and given the absence of border walls, most of the over 4,000 kilometers of land borders that Nigeria shares with neighbouring countries is unmanned, particularly in the North, and outlaws from  Niger, Chad and other Sahel nations enter Nigeria with criminal ease. Worse still, they are defended by certain sections of the northern political leadership on the basis of ethnic identity. To such leaders, the Fulani person is an international citizen who has the right to traverse the Nigerian landscape at will, regardless of the fact that such foreigners have often been associated with kidnapping, armed robbery and terrorism. As we noted in previous editorials, this is not how modern states are run. People coming into a country must be properly vetted, and must carry valid means of identification.  To be sure, it is true that by providing real-time monitoring of border areas, electronic surveillance enables timely response to potential threats, fosters enhanced intelligence gathering, and reduces the risk of undetected crossings and enhances the efficiency of border patrol. However, technological innovations can only work when backed by border walls, and by strengthening deterrence at the borders. On current evidence, while no one can deny the activities of Nigeria’s home-grown terrorists, it is a fact that foreign criminals are still entering Nigeria with ease, and are perpetrating infamy. This has to stop.

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The government must stop the influx of terrorists into Nigeria. In this regard, it has to combat the protection offered to some of these individuals by political leaders who assert their right to move in and out of Nigeria at will. It is a tragedy that criminals from distant lands perpetrate terror acts in Nigeria, extracting huge ransoms from terror-stricken families, and yet they move such cash across the borders. These criminals even participate in Nigerian elections. No country that intends to prosper tolerates such infamy. It is time the government built border walls, increased “boots on the ground” at the border areas, and complemented these with the technological innovations it recently rolled out. The consequences of insecure borders are too grim.