Nigeria’s Porous borders: Customs begin drones deployment 2023

No fewer than 364 approved international border points bordering the country, 261 are in the North-East and the North-West regions, and only 124 of these 261 borders in both regions are policed by security operatives, while 137 of the 261 are unmanned, giving room for terrorists to move into the country to unleash havoc, Saturday PUNCH gathered.

The Nigeria Customs Service said it is putting measures in place to deploy aerial surveillance technology across all borders in the country, between the last quarter of 2022 and June 2023, to monitor events around the borders in real-time and checkmate criminal elements.

The spokesperson for the Service, Mr Timi Bomodi, in an exclusive interview with our correspondent said it has kick-started a modernisation project to deploy drones, and satellite images across Nigeria’s borders by mid-2023, adding that it has also adopted the use of non-intrusive pieces of equipment such as microscopes, and others, in some designated borders.

He said, “In addition to this, we have made plans to infuse the use of surveillance technology in monitoring our borders 24/7 to get real-time information from all points with the use of satellite images, drones, unmanned aircraft, and other geospatial technologies.

“This way, we’d be able to monitor the borders from our headquarters, and this would give us a strategic advantage to always plan on how to checkmate whatever events that would happen since we would have firsthand data required.

“Securing the borders is not an easy task, but due to its importance, we’re working with other security agencies within the country and also with security agencies of countries that we share borders with, to ensure the safety and wellbeing of our citizens.”

“Our modernization project was set to be fully operational from the last quarter of this year till June 2023. By then we would have concluded the first phase of the modernisation project. This would take a lot as we’d be training our officers on how to use, maintain, service and repair the pieces of equipment, and manage the flow of data before we deploy the aerial surveillance equipment.

“ We have equipment ready but there are different aspects of the training, and it is not enough to have the equipment, as we need to have personnel that can operate and maintain them. We need to train analysts, and frontend and backend operators too. All these take time, but everything will soon be ready.

 “First off, people need to understand the nature of our borders, especially when it comes to the issue of protecting it. Our borders comprise marsh, mangroves, waterways, deserts, forests, and even mountains.

“This is coupled with the fact that the terrains are naturally hostile due to climatic conditions, and for that reason, they’re difficult to man. Now that the issue of terrorism is in the mix, it has become more complex. This was why we at Nigeria Customs, took a holistic approach to man our borders.

“We have also adopted the use of non-intrusive pieces of equipment like microscopes among others in some designated borders to things coming in, citing difficulty in examining with bare hands and the eyes. This has helped improve security in our borders,” he said.