WORRIED by the growing insecurity and the Boko Haram sect’s insurgency in the country, the Federal Government is to build about 84 border plazas as part of the ways aimed at checking the influx of foreigners.
The government is also to introduce the electronic components for the surveillance of Nigeria’s borders.
Minister of Interior, Abba Moro told journalists at the Presidential Villa Abuja that the efforts, including the capture of biometric data of all persons that enter or leave Nigeria, are aimed at ensuring that the nation’s borders are secured enough so as to guarantee the security of the nation.
Giving insight into the new measures, Moro stated that “only recently, the Federal Government ordered the closure of some of our borders and posts. And only recently too the President had declared a state of emergency in some councils in some of the flash point states and immigration officials have been drafted to add to the existing operatives on the ground with very high senior officers coordinating these activities. Besides that, the Federal Government is contemplating building border plazas now so that if we are able to identify and properly protect and secure our regular posts and routes, attention can now be directed further to the irregular border posts these criminals and infiltrators regularly use.
“In addition to that, we are trying to introduce the electronic components to the surveillance of our borders with a central post in Abuja or any part of the country that we deem fit or appropriate to so install. I hope that the combination of the system of surveillance with the human component of surveillance we should be able to drastically reduce if not completely eliminate border infiltration.”
He added: “We have recently in conjunction with the National Boundaries Commission identified 84 routes through which travellers to Nigeria use.
We are thinking as a starting point we must be able to build these plazas in these 84 points. We have equally identified 1,497 irregular routes that is how Herculean the problems of securing these borders are but daunting as the challenges, government is equal to the task because it is the primary responsibility to secure the lives and property of its citizens.”
On building of dependable data bank to check insecurity, Moro added that “it is the resolve of government to capture the biometric data of all persons that enter and leave Nigeria. This is the primary concern for Nigeria. This is a base that Nigeria does not at the moment have comprehensively and this is what we are pursuing vigorously. We are presently partnering with Galaxy Backbone. It is the major platform for capturing this data. And of course, the national identity commission is in an aggressive mood to ensure we have adequate data record of all persons that enter and leave our borders and all persons including Nigerians resident in Nigeria. We will get there soon.”
