Insecurity at Nigeria’s Borders Could Drastically Reduce by 2021 as FG Allocates N52 Billion for Electronic Monitoring

The Nigeria government has approved N52 billion for the purpose of monitoring operations across the country’s border electronically.

This is part of measures to improve security and revamp the existing mode of operation across Nigeria’s borders. In a statement, the Comptroller General of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), Muhammad Babandede, said that the officials would be able to keep track of the goings-on at the country’s borders in real-time.

During the NIS management retreat in Lagos on Friday, the Comptroller General (CG) went on to say mention that the project was set to be fully completed by the year 2021.

By the year 2021, all of Nigeria’s 4,047 kilometres of land borders, 86 border-control post, six mega-control posts, 16 medium-control posts and 64 mini-control posts, would be fully enhanced with technology.

The technology to be embraced across the borders include advanced eLTE multimedia walkie talkies to help make communication easier and faster especially in the case of security breaches. In addition, HD video surveillance equipments would be installed to monitor pedestrian movement.

As part of the security upscaling, observable thermal and optical bi-spectrum will also be adapted for low visibility environment. This can also help with perimeter defense and fire detection among others.

Border control posts would also be equipped with unified IP telephony and video conferencing facilities. This means that there will be unified communication across the border that reduces time latency.

Taking into consideration the availability of electricity at the remote locations of the borders, the CG said there would be solar grids and hybrid power supply to ensure the effectiveness of the tech enhancements.

In order to tackle the problem of power generation, especially at remote locations, there will be solar grid and 0.6 hybrid-power solution for all control posts.

Muhammad Babandede, Comptroller General of the Nigeria Immigration Service

With the 1400 illegal routes that smugglers use in moving in and out of the country and incidents of ‘settlement fees’ being collected at borders, it is hoped that the e-border monitoring system will curb some of these problems, if not all.