The Nigeria Customs Service (NSC) has said it was collaborating with its counterparts in four neighbouring countries to strengthen border security among them.
Customs Comptroller-General; Alhaji Dikko Abdullahi, stated this in Abuja at the meeting of Directors-General of Customs of Republic of Benin, Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria.
Abdullahi said that there were unresolved security challenges in the region and that it was only with deliberate coalition of efforts and resources that the challenges would be surmounted.
The Nigeria Customs Service (NSC) has said it was collaborating with its counterparts in four neighbouring countries to strengthen border security among them.
Customs Comptroller-General; Alhaji Dikko Abdullahi, stated this in Abuja at the meeting of Directors-General of Customs of Republic of Benin, Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria.
Abdullahi said that there were unresolved security challenges in the region and that it was only with deliberate coalition of efforts and resources that the challenges would be surmounted.
He said the meeting would discuss the need to seek the mandate of governments in the region to establish joint patrol teams along their common borders for the provision of adequate security.
He also said the customs bosses would resolve timely exchange of intelligence reports cross-border crimes and the implementation of the protocol on Transit Trade in common borders.
The Comptroller-General added that the meeting would adopt ways to deepen and facilitate trade between the proximate countries and the region.
“We are today, as a region, faced not only by the challenges of insurgency that is destabilising our nations, but of illicit trade in small arms, drug and narcotics, human trafficking, endangered species and prohibited goods.
“Our role, therefore, as gatekeepers of both our economies and borders, requires us today, more than any other time, to resolve to come together, to jointly confront the cross-border crimes along our common borders’’, he said.
He stated that the meeting was convened to deepen regional integration, trade facilitation and promotion of peace and security.
On his part, the National Security Adviser (NSA), Col Sambo Dasuki (rtd), said the collaboration among the customs administrations was imperative, considering insecurity challenge in Nigeria and it neighbours.
Dasuki added that for the customs to provide security at the borders; there was need for proximate countries to collaborate.
He urged the five countries to work together through joint border patrols to ensure that smuggling of arms and other prohibited goods were controlled.
The NSA noted that if the borders were adequately checked, loss of revenue by the governments as well as high cost of goods would be avoided.
“It is when there is security at the border that you can talk of trade facilitation”,he said.
Also speaking at the event, the Comptroller-General, Nigerian Immigration Service, Mr Davis Parradang, commended the customs administrators for the initiative, describing it timely.
Parradang expressed the willingness of Immigration to work with the customs at the borders to address insecurity challenge affecting the region.
Howver, the Director-General of Cameroon Customs, Mrs Minette Likeng, said the three-day meeting was to tackle insecurity challenge in the region,
Likeng, who is the incoming Vice-Chairman for West and Central Africa, World Customs Organisations, told newsmen that terrorism had made it imperative to come together to tackle the menace.
She added that the meeting would help them to share experiences and recommend how to fight cross-border crimes to their governments
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