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Agaju Madugba, Katsina
The Assistant Comptroller-General and Sector 4 Coordinator, National Border Drill, Bashir Abubakar, says the operation had achieved 85 per cent of compliance since the Federal Government took the decision to close the nation’s borders.
“We met an absolute non-compliance in import and export guidelines, banditry, human trafficking and drug movement across the borders when we first arrived this zone but we were able to turn around the trend and working relentlessly to achieve the remaining 15 per cent,” Abubakar said on Wednesday in Katsina.
He spoke when he visited the Katsina State police command where he was received by the Commissioner of Police, Sanusi Buba.
Abubakar explained that he was in the state to solicit for more support and synergy from the other security agencies in order to achieve the goals of the border closure.
According to him, “in the last couple of months that we have been here, we have found it very tough.
“We are covering the north-western states and we have been here to find ourselves with a particular system of absolute non- compliance to import and export guidelines, banditry, human trafficking and drug movement across the borders.
“We want to see how we can cut the remaining 15 per cent to possibly five per cent and see how invariably we can get to the zero level.
“By so doing, I am very sure that our nation will be safe from all these ills that are bedeviling us economically and socially.”
Responding, the police boss described the exercise as the most audacious intervention by the Federal Government in efforts to checkmate the illegal operations of smugglers.
Buba said: “So far, this is the most audacious intervention by the Federal government as far as effort to checkmate the menace of smugglers of either weaponry, goods and services.
“I can’t remember when an action as audacious as this was ever taken in the history of this country.
“And, I want to observe that it has been very successful that virtually everybody in Nigeria except the few criminal-minded ones that can be said to be against this particular intervention.
“There are too numerous benefits from it. The security aspect is very clear. Criminals for a very long time have been taking advantage of our porous borders to smuggle arms and ammunitions and even persons from neighbouring countries for one form of banditry or the other. And this intervention has assisted tremendously in checkmating these ugly trends.
“I want to say personality that I would have wished this operation to be sustained longer than that January.
“It will be more effective, more productive and will go a long way in implanting law and order in the system help us not only economically but also in the security of the country.”
