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

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adopted a secondary method of gathering data; where data was gathered from textbooks, journals, articles, published and unpublished works, and the internet.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.