 We are back, it's still the breakfast in Plastivya, Africa, and straight to first major conversation this morning when I just president, Mohamed Buhari, has ordered the Nigeria Immigration Service to make the country's borders impenetrable to infiltrators ahead of the forthcoming elections in a matter of weeks. This was contained in a statement made available to journalists by the Ministry of Interior yesterday Tuesday. The Minister of Interior Raouf Arakbe Shola, through his media advisor Shola Fashire, conveyed President Buhari's directive while inaugurating the Katsina NIS Command Office, that's the Nigeria Immigration Service Command Office, and the rollout of the enhanced e-passport services in the state. According to Arakbe Shola, the Minister, Mr. President's order is between now and the period that Nigeria concludes all its elections. The Nigeria Immigration Service should make the border's borders impregnable even after the elections. Dikso Sajji, who is a security expert, joins us right now to discuss the importance of making Nigeria's borders impenetrable, he's a global security analyst. Dikso, is it good to have you back on the program? What is the importance of having such a move, you know, a directive to the Nigeria Immigration Service because of the elections, and what do we see happening, what's the danger if we do not protect the borders with extra security during the elections, before the elections and after the elections? Yeah, thank you for having me, good morning, and it's disturbing when I write that story, because you know, when disasters strike, the time to prepare has passed. You don't prepare during time of disaster or during time of trouble, you prepare ahead. That instruction or the authority coming from the presidency is business, business in the sense that it's impossible and let's just tell us if the truth is impossible. Nigeria is one of the most on government's pace we have presently because when you look at the irregular routes in Nigeria we have about 1400 irregular routes, illegal routes you can see, here in Nigeria and asking the Nigerian immigration to make it impenetrable, it's a big fat lie, it is penetrable, because the immigration service cannot perform any miracle as it is now. They cannot govern the 114 illegal routes as it is now and they are short of manpower presently, the Nigerian immigration is about 35,000 strength capacity governed in a country sitting on about 923,000 square kilometers and also when you look at the Nigerian border line, we are bordered by Cameroon in the east, bordered by Niger Republic in the north, bordered by Chad Republic in the north east, bordered by Ben Republic here in Lagos, south, west and telling the Nigerian immigration that they should ensure that the border should be impenetrable, I think that instruction is not going to hold any water. So in other words this is security tautology. Tautology, thank you. And you know just to add to that, I mean so we remember the fact where the Chief of Defence staff sometime last year had admitted to the fact that about 137 borders of borders are porous out of you know all of that but you know looking at it, how do we now manage the fact that our borders are porous with the elections and you can't also ignore the fact that internally we're going through a lot. Sure we're going through a lot like you rightly said. Now you know I've just highlighted the border lines, the nations that border lines are just inclusive, that is from the maritime point of view. This illegal route I'm talking about is ungovernable. Most of these criminal elements capitalise on that vulnerability and penetrates into the Nigerian space and that's why over the years the Nigerian government has been finding it so hard to you know decimate these criminal elements that are you know worrying the territorial space of Nigeria. So when you say the Chief of Defence staff said 100 something, 100 something irregular border line. For me what they need to start looking at now is looking at the projection of technology because no essential manpower will govern space. So what they need to start doing now, like many times some time ago I was advising the Nigerian government to assure that they you know project a lot of drones to the Nigerian immigration. So if that instruction is coming from the presidency then I should expect them to give them drones because when we talk about security, security cannot be achieved by human capacity alone. There are three procedures, we have the human procedures, we have the technological procedures and we have the processes. So now we have the human procedure that is the immigration officers and men. We need to start looking at the technological procedures as well which has to do with drone you know sub-balance equipment that will hover around our govern space, pick in those threats and also analyze it. I mean just you know as we're saying I mean cofuse could come in in no time but let's look at it because it feels like we're always making an excuse that security challenges and issues that we're faced with is because we lack technology. We also say that with our elections that if we just only if we can you know have electronic voting then everything is going to be okay. But we also forget the fact that these technology or these theory whatever it is, it's not operated in space. Humans operated. So are we taking out the human aspect of it? The fact that you know there's corruption, people can compromise the system. For instance, Raila Odinga recently made a statement to us to the fact that you know the beavers alone technology can be manipulated and that you know these elections we have to be very careful with it. Vice President J. M. C. Banja also made reference to the fact that INEC has to have an act together. So is it enough to say you know the DSS I mean the security officials actually need the drones? Will the drones alone be enough to solve the security issue? Who have a corruption? How about people who are compromising, giving information? The modes and the system. Alright thank you. That's a very intelligent question. You know the main reason why technology is projected into the security space is to reduce the loss of life. Sometimes when you send in like 10 men to go and engage let me say some group of enemies in the borderline you end up losing all the 10 men. Now instead of losing the whole 10 men or 10 immigration officers you send in technology. For example if you shoot down a drone it's only going to cause financial loss but if you bring down a human being it's going to cause human loss. Now the essence of technology plays two roles. Now technology captures crime in progress. Crime in progress in the sense that if we have about 500 illegal irregular immigrants because by default you don't classify any human being illegal. If you have 500 irregular immigrants trying to penetrate in a dangerous place without proper identification process this technology goes to the space, pick them up, analyze it and send it to the central command system and the immigration officers and men at this point in time can go and lay ambush to these guys or you know pick them up where they are. But if you start projecting the immigration officers and projecting our officers and men in this crime prone environment who will lose more men will continue to suffer losses human wise. That's why technology is introduced to reduce the high rates of losses. I'm sure they may have to go through some visa forest to get to some of these border points. Maybe they can do what the army, the Navy, I mean the Air Force have been able to do you know which is to go through and maybe I say go and you might see some of these bandits and Jason will. Because you've said that the points are quite widespread. A thousand, more than a thousand. A hundred entry you know legal. And it's very poor. So it's you know I mean if you hear the minutes of interior saying the president has ordered that the border should be in very trouble. What does he mean? You know you ask him, hearing from you, are you an expert? It's now beginning to make me ask what does he mean? I mean do these guys even know what they joke? That was a joke. You know so okay but let's move on. What are the dangers of having a porous borders in an election period? What exactly are we up against? Thank you very much. A borderless nation I've always said is a known nation. Just for example maybe you look so good. Nigerian looks good on you. I forget to compliment you. Thank you. You see what I tell you all this time. You know I hope you're not planning to jackpot because the weight of jackpot is in. So now what I'm trying to say is this. You see INEC has four years to plan. The Nigerian security agent has four years to plan. Someone who gained admission into a university four years ago is wrapping up to graduate from the university. So anybody who has given four years to plan and did not plan with you that three years is a failure. Are we looking at people who are going to come in and vote? People who are coming and be used for you know. Violence. Violence to rig the election. Is that what we're looking at? We should be looking at multidimensional approach because when it comes to security you don't zoom in once. You don't zoom in on a particular threat. You just try to expand and try to check around the space and ensure that you close up on all the loophole areas. Like in the last 2019 elections we saw mass exodus of people coming from the Niger Republic to come and vote. We saw a mass exodus of people coming from the Niger Republic to come and vote. Now the question is how did they gain entrance into the Nigerian space? We are captured. Haven't been captured then giving voter's card because definitely they can't come to the Nigerian and vote without voter's card. That tells you that INEC has failed in its area of responsibility as well because the last time I went for capturing, I tried to assess the processes. You know, they'll just give you a form. Where are you from? Where was your local government? Your father's name? Your mother's name? It's a debatable process. A debatable process in the sense that any person can come from any part of the world and just give you details where he or she is from and you cannot verify. Free for all? Free for all because there is no investigative process to go and check. KYC, know your customer. No investigation processes to go and check. If truly the identity this guy gave us in this capturing process is really the process. But I think that is, you know, operational laziness. If not, I don't think you can just just open your system. People come around, you take them, give them form, sign. For me, those voter's card is just, let's just manage. Let's just manage. But what about nations traditionally all over the world, or at least in Africa, during election periods will always shut down their borders. Okay. Why do you? Is it not the same thing? Maybe I'm going to cut him some slack. I mean, recently Ben and Republic had a election. They shut their borders. Yes, if you shut down these borders. What about the 1,400 irregular routes I just talked about. That has been the problem. You see, the immigration service has truly responsible in protecting our national borders, not from external aggression, just protecting our national borders in the era of security, so that people who don't have the permits to come into Nigeria don't penetrate our national borders. Now, what immigration service needs to start looking at presently is to carry out a crime mapping analysis of our national borders as attain all the vulnerable areas. I remembered 22 years ago, sorry, 23 years ago, when I was in the front line, you know, somebody came to give us an information in the borderline. And what the person told us was that some guys are trying to smuggle items in an ungoverned space as at 23 years ago. And till date, we are still suffering from this ungoverned space. And one of the reasons why Nigeria is suffering from most of this high speed of insecurity is because of the porosity of our national borders. So if the presidency or the government declares a state of emergency in our national borders, I tell you, security issues will mitigate. This state of insecurity will be reduced because most of these guys, like one celebrity, Amruba, I don't want to make sure his name, he told us, he said it very clearly, he said the reason why he succeeded in his Amrubri days was due to the porosity of our national borders. This guy would disturb Lagos disturb Ibadon, disturb some states in Nigeria. What he does is that he would fetch this catch, you know, go to Benner Republic, enjoy his life. When he's done with that catch, he would come back, strike the Nigerian space, and go back. So he said very clearly that the reason why he was successful in his days of Amrubri was because of the porosity of our national borders. So what we need to start looking at after this 2023 election, we have 2027 election, the Niger Immigration Service Agency an agency in the immigration service which is known as Border Management Agency. But Border Management Departments that are solely responsible for this, they should start looking at, carrying out an assessment of our national borders. Then go back to the Ministry of Interior and say, sir, you told us that, would you measure that this place is impenetrable? We are sorry it's penetrable. No, but I mean, it's the conversation, it's the question that I raised you prior to this time. Yeah. If, you know, Chief of Defence Staff, General Lucky Rubble, had identified or mentioned that we'll have 137 borders in the North that are unprotected out of the 261 that have been abroad. Borders. So we're still talking about the fact that we're porous. I mean, we have porous borders. All right. And there's been identification by a highly, you know, respectable Minister of Personnel. Yeah. Why? 137 of them. And you know, I like the fact that we're very precise with the communication and the language we use. These borders are on manned. Yeah, on manned, yeah. So is that where the problem lies? Can we man these borders before, you know, the 25th of February? No, no, no, because we're saying that the borders are on manned. I mean, these areas are on manned. He's already said it's too late. How can it be too late? Where is the, where is the strength coming from? I've just told you that we have 35,000 options. So we don't, we don't have the military... If you want to deploy 100, 100 immigration officers in those irregular routes, it will cover it. And that is why for now, if you want to look at, you know, a short time plan for now, then we should start looking at drones. Man, drone, drone, deployment of drones. You know, when you apply drones in this, most of these areas, you know, I was watching a war film some few days ago and what the Americans did was that they sent in drones to monitor the enemy line. Now, these enemy lines, they were coming to attack the Americans and they were watching them and they let ambush on these guys. Before those guys could get there. Now, the essence of these drones is that, okay, we are watching them, they keep monitoring them, analyze the environment, carry out the satellite surveillance of that environment. Have them carry out the satellite surveillance on that environment. What you need to do now is where you project the manpower. But if you are telling me now that you want immigration service to go and start manning those borders, before they even get there, maybe they want to travel by road or whatever they give them, before they even get there and deploy them, they are watching or they will give their voices. Are you saying that we should just go ahead and ignore the fact that we have 137. This is what is reported by the Chief of Defense staff on man. We should just follow the AMS and allow 137 on protected? I'm not saying that. What I'm trying to tell you is that it's not achievable. Let me tell you for example. So, it's achievable. But I'm not saying for example, it's one of the biggest states in the United States like three times of Lagos states. Now, the travel capacity in Borono states, you can spend this to travel within Borono states. If you want to project these guys right now, you need to start looking at the risk implication as well because the risk is high. If the risk is high, you have to mitigate the projection of manpower. Now, if we want to succeed in this very area, the military has to come on board to support the Nigerian immigration service. If you want to have high threat environment, the risk is very high as it is now. The threat is high. If you project them, project them in such vulnerable environment, we will lose a lot of man. So, the only essence of the election is not to lose our officers and men. The essence of the election is for us to have a peaceful and successful election. So, for us to succeed in this very border issues is for the immigration service, the Nigerian military, because going by the strength of the Nigerian immigration service, they cannot cover our borderline. So, it seems like we may need to go and consult Donald Trump so that he can tell us how to build a wall. Oh, the border denies a wall. But I think another thing that could help us is a SWAT analysis. Some sort of maybe look at the threats and I've been asking about the threats that you've talked about and the fact that people vote. That one is forgotten. You said it's the water has sailed from what do they call it a marina wharf, jetty. That boat has sailed already. Yes, it's even but it talked about also maybe some of these foreign elements being used for violence, political thugry. And since the borders are social porous, you have a thousand four hundred entry points that can be done security wise to make sure the election is not affected by foreign elements in the red spots, you know, the flash points in the country. Flash points, yeah, fantastic. You see most times people address security without carrying out an analysis, without carrying out a risk assessment. Like you rightly said take for example Lagos State now if you want to ask me which part of Lagos State do you think is a crime prone area? In my perspective I want to say I want to say I don't want to say why let's not go there. Alright, for example let me say oh should it. Now when you identify the crime prone environment what you need to do is to project reasonable security force because what we do here in our country is just like go come, go come we don't carry out an assessment we just carry out our men, we project them. Now the immigration service we need to carry out an assessment borderline wise and inform the minister of interior immigration is where we are going to pass the threats. Then going by the election what INEC should be doing is that the security advisor to the INEC need to also carry out an assessment as well because it's so disturbing you see a lot of INEC facilities being burnt down a lot of voting materials being burnt down by most of these fifth columnists if I may say or most of these guys that just want to threaten our democracy so what they need to start looking at is to carry out an assessment and ascertain just for example if you go to the hospital example I tell you that you are not feeling fine it will just give you a drug you ask you which part of your body are you feeling pains what's wrong with you so you say ah the left side my left side or my right side this way I'm feeling the pain then you ask you what are you feeling so during those process of diagnosis the doctor will now be able to ascertain what the problem is that's how security is being treated as a project solution because the reason why you need to carry out an assessment so that you be able to ascertain the number of manpower you project within that environment technological wise you need to ascertain what you need to project in that environment and also how to cut off the opportunity from these criminals I mean we like the insight that you have you know brought in I mean we've been very realistic but let's even get to the point of you being an expert now I mean you have their security measures is there anything that you can speak to you know speaking to this government speaking to INEC what exactly can be done there are little measures that can be taken to ensure that we have this election not entirely perfect but you know near perfect for us it should be perfect it is near perfect I think INEC have done their best so far so good the introduction of beavers is going to reduce the criminal activities because most of these guys what they are their plan is to come and smash the ballot box that's what most of this criminal element does and also to disturb the elections piece and is still here in the in the electorate so the introduction of beavers has drastically mitigated let me say the passive threats okay now you ask me if I would like to advise what would I advise for me what I would advise the government is that we most first of all have it in our mind that the time to prepare is not is not the time of the incident you have to prepare ahead of time because I earlier said that so no backup plan we just get to see that if that's the problem if you see those movies I mean there's always a backup plan that is the issue so there's no backup plan there can't be any backup plan we don't have any backup plan but there can be a backup plan the backup plan we should be expecting is just the capability and capacity of our security agency because the threat we are expecting is not a biological threat it's not a nuclear threat it's not a technological threat it's a human threat so if you are expecting human threats what you need to address human threat is human capacity and technological capacity like I have earlier said now beavers has already mitigated the area of a ballot box snatching which is a very good one from a delegation of you know projection of fear in the Nigerian space so the security agent needs to assess most of this crime prone area like I have said earlier on that they need to assess the crime prone area check where the threat is coming from take for example now burning of iron materials we've experienced it from a burning state we've experienced it from South East then what the security agent needs to do is to project that environment so that those criminal elements will be unable to penetrate it's such a place very interesting we will soon be done but you're talking about the security forces and the role they will play in projecting on this flash on them but the element of compromise by the security agents agencies or operators is a huge one which I am in reference in river state this week the opposition parties in river state particularly the STP governorship candidate and the APC they have alleged the attacks and they sent the police in that state the police commissioner maybe his buyers some of them said even police have actually attacked some of these politicians or been around looking at thugs attacking did nothing one thing that really captures the compromise of these guys in 2015 Nigeria through the central bank of Nigeria banned the importation of rice into the country by the year 2020 the Republic a country of just 13 million people about 13 million people were said to be the 7th largest importer of rice in the world the imported rice worth 663 million dollars how many times did they people in the Republic eat rice for them to be a small country so I mean it can be you can put one and two together to see what's going on you know so what about this this this compromise by security operators even military police or even immigration officials in discipline in discipline and that's a disturbing situation you see when Americans say they are the world power they build their world power from their military might Russia claims their world power they build their world power from military might any nation that don't stand firm to build the capacity efficiency and capability of its military and security agents agency they are planning to fail because there are times you plan to fail and there are times you plan to succeed so how come you get that discipline because it used to be there before now it has to be it has to be from the command control center it has to be leadership because like you rightly said most times I've seen a lot of times who see videos flying around you see police officers military officers soldiers you know abusing because they are carrying one or two personalities whatever the case may be and most of these officers and men we are trained with our tax our tax our tax money so why should I pay tax for you to pay the police officers and those police officers are protecting the likes to intimidate the poor that is a no no and that is why we need the transition because what is happening in Nigeria presently presently as it is the first scarcity the naira scarcity because naira now is more valuable than dollar because those days you look for dollar you don't get it but now we are not getting naira so what we are experiencing presently is closing ceremony of this administration and this closing ceremony is very very tough and very very painful but for me if we want to get it right command every officers every commanders must call their men to order every state commissioner of police must call their men to order because if we keep on experiencing this how do you expect us to introduce community and state policing if we introduce community and state policing that tells you that most of the state governors they will abuse that system they have to go coffee just before we go I mean I'm not expecting that you answer this but if we blame the military for lack of discipline and we say that we have lost professionalism in the police and in every you know security architecture then is that entirely the problem what happens to the motivation what happens to the welfare of the military I mean look at that how many times have we had people protesting for allowances that have not been paid retired police officers retired military officers you don't even want to talk about I mean because by virtue of what they do they can't even come out to protest I mean I think we're almost in that category so you can't even come out to tell the people what exactly you're going through so you have to wait to get on to that part so I mean has there been any what's the level of motivation for the special now because you can't be demanding what you haven't imputed into what would you be taking from a system you haven't invested into it's a human being we can't discard you know their welfare and then expect that they perform magic and expect that they don't compromise and get in bed you know with the terrorists I've made a lot of move about motivations motivation is very very essential in management of our security agency because for you to put your life on the line to protect the territorial integrity of Nigeria you need to be well taken care of health wise you need to be well taken care of the motivations here in Nigeria is one of the weakest motivation I've ever seen in the whole of Africa because you see a soldier being paid $50,000 $60,000 a month not even up to $100 per now and when a soldier dying in the battlefield their wives and children are being you know sent out to the power barraged within six or three months most of these motivations is what the new administration needs to address because it is the government needs to declare state of emergency about that if you are a corrupt official if you are corrupt commissioner of police to collect money from the governor to scuttle to democracy in elections and to do his bidding your professionalism has been dictated just who you are that's who you are sometimes money can change your mind oh yeah even the Bible says so we have to go we have to go we have more discussions ahead definitely when we return we're looking at wet lands and what exactly that means for us as Nigerians and also Africans the continent who stay with us