In order to technically contain and manage the spread of Ebola Virus Desease (EVD), in the country, the Cross River state government has appealed to the federal government to close down the country’s borders temporarily.
Special Adviser to Governor Liyel Imoke on Security Matters, Mr. Rekpene Bassey, made the appeal yesterday in Calabar when the new Cross River state Comptroller of Immigration, Mrs. Cecilia Funke Adeuyi, paid him a courtesy call.
Bassey said Nigeria ought to have taken the initiative of closing down its borders immediately the Ebola disease was reported in some countries in the West African region, instead of allowing Cameroon to do it first even when there was no reported case of Ebola in the Central African state.
He said: “You are aware that Cameroon has shut its borders. We ought to have taken that initiative immediately we heard of the outbreak in Guinea and Liberia. I appeal to you to deploy more officers to our land border with Cameroun.
“We have had cases of people being stranded at the National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) jetty at Marina resort because of our porous borders.”
He said many illegal immigrants had been using the NIWA jetty to enter the country and urged the Immigration boss to act fast, and also advised that issuance of travel documents should be checked in order to protect the image of the country.
He said immigration authorities should consider giving Cross River state its deserved quotas whenever any recruitment exercise was to takes place as the last ill-fated recruitment did not favour the state.
In her remarks, Mrs. Adeuyi said due to the need to strengthen the nation’s borders, the federal government recently trained 1000 Border Corps and that the Service would ensure that both men and material resources would be deployed to tighten border patrol.
“Let me inform you that the federal government recently trained 1000 Border Corps to ensure adequate security on our borders, and I believe that every border in the state would be well secured.”
