The Federal Government claims to be “on the verge” of signing a contract for electronic border surveillance with the Chinese company Huawei.
This was said by the interior minister, Rauf Aregbesola, in Abuja when he was a guest on the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) forum.
Aregbesola predicted that the electronic surveillance posts would reinforce border controls and boost national security.
“As a matter of fact, we are at the point of signing an agreement with Huawei on e-border.
“This means we want to employ technology to put all the critical border positions on 24/7 satellite-based electronic surveillance.
“This will give us 24/7 real-time surveillance of designated border areas from all our monitoring centres, particularly the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) headquarters.
“You can as well press a button to know what is happening in Kamba border post, Jibia border and even Mfum, among others.”
Aregbesola declared that the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), together with other organizations, would keep enforcing laws against all forms of illegal immigration.
“We are the lead in border control, we are not the only agency in border management, but we’ll do our best to ensure Nigerians are safe, ‘’ he added.
“Virtually all the other security and intelligence agencies are involved, we are not relaxing, we are dedicated and committed.
“And we are zealous and ensuring that this move will reduce threats, and we’ll manage and control the borders.”
Nigerians, according to Aregbesola, should be aware that their nation has one of the longest frontiers in all of Africa.
“To really drive that home, Nigeria has about 5,000 kilometres of border line. What that tells you is that it is not possible for you to have enough men that will man every inch or centimetre or millimetre of that border line,” he said.
“But we have established border positions that are manned, spread across the entire length of the boundaries of Nigeria.
“But beyond that, which is about sovereignty, is the fact that the artificiality of our boundaries cannot just be thrown aside.
“It means that except where it is impossible for human beings to exist, there is no border line where there is human existence that does not separate human beings, communities who are homogenous.”
The minister continued by saying that the prevalence of cross-border crimes will decline once e-border monitoring and surveillance was implemented.
