Nigeria seeks regional cooperation to strengthen border governance

The National Boundary Commission (NBC), a key participant in the Association of Borderlands Research Network 2026 International Conference, has urged for greater collaboration among governments, academia, border communities, and development partners to tackle emerging issues affecting Africa's border regions. This call was made during the ongoing Lagos conference, themed "The Connected Borderlands, Socio-Cultural Integration, and the Centrality of Policy, Research, and Security."

Chinwe Udouwem, NBC's Head of Information, Press and Public Relations, announced this during the conference's opening ceremony.

Director-General of NBC, Adamu Adaji, described borderlands as "strategic zones of interaction, cooperation, opportunity, and at times, contestation." He underscored that effective border management demands policies backed by thorough research and evidence-based analysis. Adaji highlighted that borders serve as pivotal spaces where security, trade, migration, environmental sustainability, identity, citizenship, and regional integration converge.

He stressed that managing these borders effectively necessitates not just physical infrastructure and security measures but also policies grounded in comprehensive research and evidence-based reasoning.

As a significant partner of the conference, NBC played a leading role in the plenary roundtable discussion titled "Frontiers: Border Demarcation, Maritime Governance, and Cross-Border Cooperation in a Changing Security Landscape." This session featured NBC's Director of Maritime Boundaries, Mr. Nurudeen Abba, Head of Cross-Border Cooperation, Dr. Farouk Tarfa, and Force Commander of the Multi-National Maritime Task Force in the Gulf of Guinea, Commodore M. S. Shettima.

The discussions addressed challenges related to boundary delimitation, transboundary security threats, and maritime governance, with a focus on issues such as terrorism, banditry, arms trafficking, irregular migration, smuggling, and maritime insecurity. Adaji emphasized that addressing these challenges requires robust collaboration between governments, academia, border communities, and development partners, emphasizing that the task at hand is not only about securing borders but also about governing them in a manner that balances sovereignty with cooperation, security with mobility, and national interests with regional aspirations.