Border Securitisation and Politics of State Policy in Nigeria, 2014–2017

Abstract

This article examines the politics of public policies characterised by increased securitisation of Nigeria's national boundary from 2014 to 2017. While the regulation appears on paper to discourage transborder crime, capital outflow and sustain a favourable balance of payment, the existing armoury of West African border literature argues otherwise. What is new in the transborder dynamics of West Africa? What informs government's border policies in Nigeria? In answering these questions, this study provides a template for a reassessment of the gap between borderlands theory and policy in West Africa. The approach is comparative based on the critical analysis of oral interviews, government trade records, newspaper reports and the extant literature. The article provides a platform for rethinking of the nexus between governance and development in West Africa from the securitisation and neo-patrimonial perspectives. It concludes that effective border management in Nigeria is set aback by misguided and dysfunctional elitist-centred regulations that are devoid of the realities on the ground.

Are Borders a Burden? Debates and Counter-Narratives on Nigeria’s National Security

“…The practice of borders in Africa is largely centred on heaping national misgovernance and internal crises of state on the borders, and thus using them as a basis to justify border securitisation by the political elites. For instance, in East Africa, the Kenya-Somalia borders have been under securitisation since 2016, following the activities of the Al-Shabab terrorists in that axis (Faleye 2019). In southern Africa, South Africa has equally advanced various securitisation measures to check 'intruders' from neighbouring states.…”

“…Besides, informal cross-border trading is a very ‘lucrative’ business in Nigeria, involving a vast network of connivance between state and non-state actors (e.g., border security officials) (Adetula 2015; Faleye 2019). The borders are conduits of ‘opportunities’ for many frustrated unemployed Nigerians, who rely on the porosity to smuggle used clothes, bags, shoes, cars, popularly known as ‘tokunbo’, and other agricultural products for sale to major dealers in the country.…”