The Effects of Border Porosity on Nigeria’s National Security: A Study of Nigeria’s Northeastern Border To Cameroon

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume V, Issue V, May 2021 | ISSN 2454–6186

The Effects of Border Porosity on Nigeria’s National Security: A Study of Nigeria’s Northeastern Border to Cameroon

Abdulkarim Abdullahi and Yesmin Abubakar Gawi
Nile University of Nigeria, Abuja, Nigeria

Abstract: The issue of border porosity is something that scholars of international relations, contemporary studies, international communities, and international law are focusing on. This is because all the countries in the world within their territory share their boundaries with one or two countries. This also does not change in the case of Africa, rather, Africa’s borders are those that are demarcated without considering that maintaining their porosity is difficult. This is as a result of the balkanization of Africa into smaller nations by the Europeans, where they did not consider the interrelationship between the neighbouring countries; the shared culture, and values that have been in existence before the European’s invasion into Africa, where it has been practiced in a single form. This paper studied the effect of border porosity on Nigeria’s national security: A study of Nigeria’s northeastern border to Cameroon. In doing that, the paper aimed at examining the effect of border porosity on Nigeria’s national security. Adopting a qualitative approach to study, this paper adopted a secondary method of gathering data; where data was gathered from textbooks, journals, articles, published and unpublished works, and the internet. In conducting this research, the securitization theory was adopted to explain why states have to deal with issues that constitute national security threats and challenges. The major finding of this paper is that; border porosity led to food scarcity in the northeast, which in the struggle for food people get into serious crises. Also, the level of kidnapping and insecurity has increased in that region.

Keywords: Border porosity, migration, Boko-haram, national security, communal value, insecurity

I. INTRODUCTION

Countries in Africa today are facing the serious challenge of managing their borders to the extent that their territorial sovereignty is in danger. This is because interdependence between states today has become something inevitable and beyond individual state’s control, as Aristotle stated “no country is an island of its own”, therefore, states need one another to survive and conduct a relationship with one another. All matters in their relations are to protect and promote their national interests by displaying their domestic politics at the international level. Among the national interests’ border protection happened to be the most important factor because among the qualities of the state; it is permanent territory. So, therefore, borders happened to be a strong component that the state has to protect. Though with the pressure from the African

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