Borderlands Policy and National Security in Nigeria: An Exploratory Study of the 2019 Border Closure
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31150/ajshr.v3i12.1844Keywords:
Policy, Land, Border, Closure, Borderland, National SecurityAbstract
Borderlands closure policy ordinarily should be a recipe for national security but this appears not to be the case with the 2019 border closure policy which was rather driven by economic objectives. This paper argued that the 2019 policy on borderlands closure had no significant positive impact on national security in Nigeria. The human needs theory was used in this paper to explain why the issues of insecurity, smuggling, and cross border crimes continued unabated in Nigeria. The purposive sampling technique was used in selecting the border areas and fifty (50) participants who were interviewed. Essentially, both primary and secondary data were used in this study and analysis was done using descriptive and content analytical models. The paper found that the policy on land border closure has neither improved national security nor reduced the rate of smuggling and cross border crimes across the Nigerian land borderlines. The study concluded that the policy on land border closure in Nigeria failed to achieve national security but rather exacerbated cross border crimes and insecurity in Nigeria. The paper recommended among others that the Nigerian government through the National Assembly should create an agency to be known as National Border Management and Surveillance Service. Recruited members of this agency should be trained specifically in border surveillance programmes and deployed to the porous Nigerian border areas. The agency alongside other security agencies should be adequately funded and motivated to guarantee proper and effective coordination in Nigeria’s border management sector.
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