President Muhammadu Buhari has said the fragile nature of entry points into various countries enhances terrorism, economic sabotage, and illicit flow of arm.
He said this at State House in Abuja yesterday while receiving Dr Kunio Mikuriya, Secretary-General, World Customs Organization, who is in Nigeria for a Global Conference on Fragile Borders.
He said Nigeria and her neighbours must place higher premium on the effective policing of borders.
Buhari said the conference, themed ‘Enabling Customs in Fragile and Conflict Affected Situations’, was of “critical importance for us as a country as we go to the polls, but equally important to most countries on the continent, and dare I say the world. In fact, it is quite frankly the singular most concerning sub-issue in our national security agenda.
“The fragility of our borders has been a major Achilles heel in our fight against terrorism, economic sabotage and illicit flow of small and light weapons.”
Commending Mikuriya for his 4th visit to the country, he said this current one was coming at a time we were preparing for general elections.
He said: “I’ve made it a cardinal commitment to ensure each Nigerian is able to exercise their franchise by participating in a free and fair election, in true practice of our relatively nascent democracy.
“It’s our objective to ensure this takes place in a peaceful and conducive atmosphere, despite all the usual excitement and gamesmanship that is known to occur during election campaigning.”
Buhari briefed the WCO Secretary-General and his team on a number of efforts in combating the challenges of fragile borders.
He expressed hope that the conference would seek to understand the operating environment that existed around countries who struggled with fragile borders, and see how comprehensive and exhaustive solutions could be proposed that dealt with the multi-faceted nature of the issues.
Mikuriya said Customs services must now go beyond mere revenue generation, and delve into security, as “without security at the borders, we cannot effectively collect revenue.”
He lamented that Customs officials were often targets of terrorists and armed groups, “and so we need to have collaboration with other security agencies, share intelligence, and deploy technology.”
Join Daily Trust WhatsApp Community For Quick Access To News and Happenings Around You.
