NBC promoting peaceful coexistence among border communities – D-G
By Philip Yatai
The National Boundary Commission (NBC) says it is promoting peaceful coexistence among internal and international border communities.
The NBC Director-General, Mr Adamu Adaji, stated this on Friday in Abuja, while assessing the impact of President Bola Tinubu’s administration after two years in office.
Adaji said that the move was in line with the mandate of the commission to make affected communities live peacefully with others and cooperate for socio-economic development.
He told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that the commission was creating awareness in affected communities to encourage cross-border cooperation for a greater good.
He added that the NBC had also created a platform to encourage engagement among border states and local government areas.
According to him, the goal is to enhance cooperation in terms of security and intelligence gathering.
“Recently, we had a programme in Benin Republic where the entire stretch of the Nigeria-Benin border was looked at in terms of the ethnic composition of the two countries.
“Most of these boundaries are artificial and cutting across the same homogenic communities, as such, people on the Nigerian side and their brothers on the Benin side need to cooperate.
“So, we brought them together to see how they can, at least, take advantage of the commonality in terms of social, cultural ethnicity to promote cooperation.”
The NBC boss added that the commission was also trying to build a relationship with Cameroon, where the boundary lines cut the same religious community into two.
He said that a need assessment had been carried out to see what could be of benefit to the two sides that can be jointly utilised.
The goal, according to him, is to see how they can also come together, close ranks and cooperate.
He further said that the NBC was in the process of creating integration and confidence building among the local people for enhancement of intelligent gathering, socio-cultural activities and security of the two countries.
He added that contrary to the erroneous assumptions that cross-border cooperation fuels insecurity, cooperation among the affected communities in a way helps in intelligent gathering.
This, he said, was possible if the affected people see themselves as one and that whatever affects the part of Nigeria, invariably will affect their own part if they don’t cooperate.
“So, cooperation is not failing. We just try to see how they can come together and work together,” he said.
He noted that viewing boundaries from the traditional and ethnic perspective would continue to be a challenge.
He, however, said that the commission would continue to sensitise the border communities on the need to view boundaries from merely an administrative line for administrative convenience.
Adaji noted that the absence of clearly defined and demarcated boundaries constitutes a serious security threat to the border communities.
He added that the NBC was doing all it could to ensure that all resolved boundaries were clearly defined and demarcated. (NAN)
Edited by Rotimi Ijikanmi
