With the growing insecurity in Nigeria and the endless flow of firearms into the country, I am surprised that none of the political parties are advocating for walled borders

Ayo Akinfe

[1] I assume that all the political gladiators jostling to occupy Aso Rock are aware of the fact that there are about 6m illegal firearms in Nigeria. Almost all of them came from Libya’s armoires, which were looted when the Gaddafi administration fell

[2] If Nigeria’s government wants to combat the growing insecurity across the nation, it needs to do something about its porous borders. Especially the northern border with Niger Republic, which is a haven for smugglers, gun runners, terrorists and religious zealots

[3] I hope the likes of Bola Tinubu, Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi have plans to build a border that will combat the incessant influx of AK47s into Nigeria. Building such a wall will go a long way towards achieving this

[4] Maybe a wall should then be augmented with Dragon's teeth as a secondary line of defence. Dragons teeth are square-pyramidal anti-tank obstacles of reinforced concrete first used during the Second World War to impede the movement of tanks and mechanised infantry

[5] Basically, the idea of Dragons Teeth was to slow down and channel tanks into killing zones where they could easily be disposed of by anti-tank weapons. Nigeria may need them just in case the terrorists and smugglers decide to dig tunnels under our walks. This secondary barrier will help combat the influx of lorries, pick-up trucks and motorcycles that are used to smuggle weapons across the border

[6] As a third line of defence, we may then need to lay land mines across large sections of our border. We are under attack so need to treat this as a military matter, with war-time defences

[7] Obviously we we start with the notorious Niger Republic border but with time, the measures will need to be introduced to all our other borders too

[8] Several nations have walled borders today. India for instance extensive fences and walls along its borders with Bangladesh and Myanmar, as well as the Line of Control with Pakistan

[9] Along the Russia and Ukraine border in Belgorod Oblast, defensive lines were constructed in October 2022 under the supervision of the Wagner Group. Nigeria needs to be looking at something similar

[10] If we cannot protect our borders with our neighbours then we have no choice but to merge with them. We can then ringfence a Unified Nation of Songhai made up of modern day Nigeria, Benin Republic, Cameroon and Niger Republic. Build Korean-style fortifications around it

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