President Muhammadu Buhari says Nigeria and her neighbours must place higher premium on the effective policing of borders to check criminal activities.
The President stated this while playing host to the Secretary-General, World Customs Organisation, (WCO), yesterday, in Abuja.
Mikuriya is in Nigeria for a ‘Global Conference on Fragile Borders’.
According to the President, the fragile nature of entry points into various countries enhances terrorism, economic sabotage, and illicit flow of arms.
Theme of the conference is: ‘Enabling Customs in Fragile and Conflict Affected Situations’, which the President said is of “critical importance for us as a country, as we go to the polls.
”(It is) 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.”
The Nigerian leader briefed the WCO Secretary-General and his team on a number of efforts in combating the challenges of fragile borders.
Buhari expressed his hope that the conference would seek to understand the operating environment that exists around countries that struggle with fragile borders, and see how comprehensive and exhaustive solutions can be proposed to deal with the multi-faceted nature of the issues.
In his remarks, Mikuriya described WCO as a 184-member worldwide organization, in which Nigeria had been playing an active and vibrant role.
He 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”, and thanked Nigeria for hosting the three days conference.
