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…Calls for stronger security action
The Sea Empowerment & Research Center (SEREC) has raised the alarm over the rising criminal threats across the nation’s ports and border lands and called for stronger national security response.
This was stated in the SEREC’s policy and industry enlightenment bulletin issued by the Head of Research of SEREC, Eugene Nweke and made available to Daily Sun on Sunday, said that Nigeria must therefore not wait for a catastrophic incident before strengthening its defences.
However, the research centre commended the Comptroller-General of Customs, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi, and the management of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) for the Service’s sustained vigilance, intelligence-led interventions and remarkable interceptions of prohibited and dangerous consignments across Nigeria’s ports, land borders and other points of entry.
SEREC considered these interventions worthy of public commendation, not merely because they represent successful Customs enforcement, but because they increasingly constitute a critical first line of defence in Nigeria’s national-security architecture.
According to SEREC, it is increasingly difficult to regard the recurring interception of arms and ammunition, weapons, illicit drugs, prohibited goods, unreported currency and other sensitive consignments as isolated incidents of smuggling.
“The frequency and nature of these interceptions suggest that Nigeria’s extensive maritime and land-frontier networks are being persistently tested and exploited by transnational criminal syndicates, arms traffickers, drug cartels, organised smuggling networks and potentially terrorist-linked interests seeking to penetrate, transit or establish supply channels through the country’s legitimate trade infrastructure.
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“This development demands a fundamental shift in national consciousness. A seized container is not merely a Customs seizure. A prohibited weapon intercepted at a port is potentially a weapon denied to a criminal, terrorist or violent extremist network. A narcotics consignment stopped at the border represents the disruption of a criminal supply chain. The implication is therefore profound: Nigeria’s ports, borders and trade corridors are no longer only economic gateways; they are also strategic national-security frontiers,” SEREC said.
Meanwhile, SEREC therefore uses this opportunity not only to commend the NCS but to issue a strong wake-up call to the Federal Government and all relevant security and regulatory institutions.
SEREC said that the recurring interceptions should trigger deeper national-security assessment, intelligence coordination and preventive action, saying Nigeria cannot afford to wait until illicit arms, ammunition, narcotics, terrorist logistics and criminal finances have successfully penetrated the country before responding.
“The activities and expansionist tendencies of banditry, terrorist and violent extremist organisations and other transnational criminal networks operating within and around the West African sub-region must be proactively contained. This concern becomes even more compelling as the nation gradually moves towards the 2027 general electioneering period.
“Election periods can create additional vulnerabilities through heightened political activity, increased movement of people and goods, illicit financing, proliferation of small arms and light weapons, communal tensions and attempts by criminal elements to exploit political instability,” the research centre said.
SEREC therefore urged the Federal Government to intensify intelligence gathering, border surveillance, inter-agency coordination and preventive security measures well ahead of the 2027 electoral cycle, rather than adopting a reactive posture after threats have materialised.
