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CROSS BORDER CRIMES IN WEST AFRICAN SUB- REGION: IMPLICATIONS
Abstract- Despite the efforts of cross-border security agencies like the Nigeria police, customs service, Immigration services, and Nigerian civil Defense etc, Nigeria borders have been described as porous allowing all sorts of cross border or transborder criminal activities such as human trafficking, smuggling, drug trafficking, arm robbery, money laundry and illicit arms trafficking resulting to proliferation of SALW. Thus, West Africa’s regional superpower, Nigeria, continues to face serious security challenges due to cross border or transborder criminal activities. We argue that; one, the spate of cross border criminal activities in West Africa undermines Nigeria’s national security; and two, frequent trans-border crimes in West African sub-region impede Nigeria’s external relations. The focus of this paper therefore is to examine the implications of cross border crimes in West Africa for Nigeria’s national security and external relations. The study is basically a historical research method relying mainly on secondary sources of data from internet sources, official documents and country websites as the method of data collection. In other words, we made use of qualitative-descriptive analysis as our method of data analysis, that is, documentary studies of official document and other materials in analyzing the secondary data. This paper titled “Cross Border Crimes in West African sub-region: Implications for Nigeria’s National Security and External Relations”. The paper is basically a
historical research method relying mainly on secondary sources of data from internet sources, official documents and country websites as the method of data collection. We made use of qualitative-descriptive analysis as our method of data analysis, that is, documentary studies of official document and other materials in analyzing the secondary data. The major purpose of embarking on this research is to examine the implications of cross border crimes in West Africa for Nigeria’s national security and external relations. Thus, we were able to make the following principal findings that, one; the spate of cross border criminal activities in West Africa undermines Nigeria’s national security. Two, which frequent trans-border crimes in West African sub-region, impede Nigeria’s external relations. On the basis of this, we recommend, one, reconstituting the Nigerian state in such a way as to be proactive in dealing with the rampant cross border criminal activities that undermine its national security. Two, strengthening the cross-border law enforcement agencies in order to enable them check the frequent trans-border crimes that impede its external relations and finally this paper is to explore particular cross border crimes in West African subregion, and recommend options for effective responses. In doing this, this paper seeks to: (a) identify and discuss the different categories of cross-border crime; (b) review efforts aimed at curbing cross-border criminal activities by looking at levels of state collaborative processes and regulatory frameworks; and finally (d) recommend effective options for government and civil society action on the issue. This paper calls for strengthening short-term, feasible and implementable sub-regional collaborative programmes backed by swift national enforcement measures to address the proximate causes of cross-border crimes in West African sub-region. Keywords: cross border crimes, west africa, nigeria, national security and external relations.