About 1,487 illegal routes into Nigeria and 84 regular borders have been discovered by the Nigeria Immigration Service, the Minister of Interior, Abba Moro has said.
Moro who was responding to a question on the porous nature of the nation’s borders against the backdrop of the current security challenges facing the country as well as the current insurgencies across the nation’s borders said, “since I assumed office we have taken deliberate steps in conjunction with National Boundaries Commission, to identify our borders and the routes that leads to Nigeria from other countries.
“I have repeatedly told Nigerians that in that process we have been able to identify 84 regular borders and over 1,497 irregular routes to Nigeria”.
The Minister however said the current administration under the leadership of President Good luck Jonathan has not thrown its hands into the wind in the face of the porosity of the nation’s borders, rather he said the Nigeria Immigration Service under the purview of the Ministry of Interior has taken far reaching steps towards patrolling and controlling movement around the identified regular border routes.
Moro further revealed that plans were underway to use the Public Private Partnership model to further demarcate Nigeria border posts with her neighbouring countries so as to ensure a better border management of the nation.
“We are contemplating using the Public Private Partnership model, to see how we can construct graders, around our borders, because as it is today if you go to most of our land borders you hardly can define when you are in Nigeria and when you are out of Nigeria, and that is because of lack of physical structure that will separate Nigeria from the other country, so this is what we plan to do and I hope that within this financial year with the arrangement we have put in place construction work will start immediately in some of these borders.
“.. of course, we are contemplating, given the resources that will be giving to us, that we should also complement the physical human effort patrolling our borders. We believe it will ensure a better border management for Nigeria.”
On the issue of influx of aliens into the country, the Minister emphasized that that the problem was not peculiar to Nigeria alone, adding that the Nigeria Immigration Service has not relented in its constitutional role of ensuring that undesirable aliens are eased out of the country.
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