NBC partners Borno State to stem insecurity at borders

To check pervasive insecurity and ensure economic cooperation and integration on the African continent, National Boundary Commission (NBC) has collaborated with the Borno State government to achieve the target.

Consequently, a one-day programme to see to creation of Local Border Authorities in the North East was held in Maiduguri. Themed “Transforming borders from barriers of separation to bridges of cooperation and integration,” the event was predicated on the need by the Federal Government to proactively harness the abundant human resources for peace building nationwide.

NBC’s Director General, Adamu Adaji, charged the participants to be purveyors of peace in their domains, stressing that promoting peaceful coexistence should be everybody’s concern.

He said the platform would be replicated across all frontiers, stating that it could serve as a veritable tool for translating decisions of the Border Governors Forum into concrete actions and also serve as vehicle for regular engagement of local authorities and traditional institutions, as well as neighbouring countries.

In his remarks, Deputy Governor of Borno State and Chairman of the State Boundary Committee, Umar Usman Kadafur, represented by the Commissioner for Inter-Governmental Affairs/Deputy Chairman of the panel, Pogu Lawan, noted the coming to being of the platform was an indication by the Federal Government to sustain synergy among critical stakeholders through regular engagement to strengthen enduring relationships.

According to him, the initiative would also serve as a medium to mitigate the daunting challenges being faced at the border communities by instituting projects of common benefits geared towards enhancing existing ties with “our neighbours and uplifting the standard of living among border community dwellers.”

He said that the Borno government was making efforts to bridge the infrastructure gap created by the Boko Haram insurgency in the last decade. Executive Secretary of the Border Communities Development Agency (BCDA), Junaid Abdullahi, represented by Director of Planning, Inter-Governmental and Community Relations, Sadiq Abdullahi, pledged his organisation’s continued partnership with relevant bodies towards implementation of effective border management policies as enshrined in the agency’s Strategic Action Plan (BCDA-SAP) for the development of all border communities in the country.