By: Enewaridideke Ekanpou

Borders are the plagues of any society; borders are also the joys of any society. Border management strategies intentionally mapped out do produce results that become either destabilising or beneficial when viewed through the lens of man’s struggle for self-actualisation and social belonging in a society where identity-building is all.

However society is structured, the cream of man’s struggle is to attain self-actualisation and social belonging, especially with borders that have attained changing meanings and functions in the society. In line with the changing meanings of borders which function differently in different societies, the preoccupation of High Chief Government Ekpemupolo ( Tompolo) and High Chief Dr. Dennis Otuaro centres on functionally optimal management of borders away from the udulations that stifle growth and self-actualisation projections. Burdened with these national assignments, Tompolo and Dr. Otuaro are always at work to be on the rosy side of history in terms of border-management since they are now looked upon as border managers in Nigeria.

Borders were chiefly conceptualised as geographical constructs cartographically marked and indicated by lines and divisions. With the reconceptualisaton, reconfiguration and re-imagination of borders in the 1980s, borders have also become social constructs that function differently and define human relations, especially when they are applied to literature through the methodology of border poetics.

The endangerment or betterment of society depends on how borders are managed by government, the oil companies and privileged individuals because borders are no longer defined solely by geographic constructions. Society escapes being encumbered when borders are optimally managed by border managers.

Currently, pipeline surveillance and protection is contractually in the hands of Tompolo just as the Presidential Amnesty Programme is in the hands of Dr. Otuaro. Right from when this national task is contractually thrust on Tompolo, he knows that there are borders between the communities and the government, including the multinational oil companies. Even among the oil producing communities there are borders defined by those involved in local refining of crude oil through pipeline vandalism, and those who are ideologically opposed to it. For those involved in pipeline vandalism and local production of fuel, diesel and kerosene, it is their own search for self-actualisation and social belonging since the symbolic borders have been manipulated and hegemonised through border exclusivity. To handle these emerging complexities, Tompolo created engagement platforms for all communities and individuals hitherto engaged in pipeline vandalism and crude oil theft for self-actualisation and social belonging.

Tompolo is a man always driven by vision. With varied engagement platforms created by him, the borders become no longer tension-stricken; the borders become sites for meaningful interaction and integration, where self-actualisation platforms have been created for the people. The net profit of this border-management has manifested in higher daily production of crude oil in Nigeria. This means the Nigerian Federal Government has got the enablement to fulfill its obligations to the citizens through proper management of the economy and its allied matters without giving fruitless excuses attributed to pipeline vandalism and crude oil theft.

The Presidential Amnesty Programme is also burdened with various borders. People who have today become ex-agitators were once militant agitators who carried guns against the government and the multinational oil companies in Nigeria. In carrying guns they were all driven by their own search for self-actualisation, identity negotiation and social belonging because they were systematically shut out by the Nigerian Federal Government and the multinational oil companies in the management of the symbolic borders. Sadly, everything was wilfully pushed to dimensions of border exclusivity by the border managers. For a people systematically shut out by border managers, they feel existentially obligated to negotiate and construct their own identities within the Nigerian structure. Nigeria became the home of tensions as these agitators searched for their self-actualisation within the Nigerian governance space. To extinguish the conflagration from the emerging border tensions, Amnesty was given to the agitators, followed by creation of engagement platforms. Dr. Otuaro has been assigned the task to handle these complexities and reduce border tensions that always inflict wounds on the economy of Nigeria.

Very much at home with the dangers and consequences with the emerging tensions likely to emerge when borders are not handled as sites for interaction, integration and self-actualisation, Dr. Otuaro activated and strengthened all the engagement platforms for all ex-agitators. Between the ex-agitators there are borders resulting from the fact that some are educated while others are not educated. To bridge this gap and ward off border tensions, all the ex-agitators are placed in engagement and empowerment platforms that reflect their capabilities. In this specific approach Dr. Otuaro is guided by his insight into the benefits of comparative advantage in resource management built around the strengths and weaknesses of the people in terms of their capabilities and specific areas of excellence and performance-fluidity.

In handling the affairs of the Amnesty Programme Dr. Otuaro has never been associated with scandals and crisis incubated and masterminded by agitators because he has deep roots in border management. The Amnesty boss has structured the PAP in a manner replete with windows and opportunities for self-actualisation and social belonging. Otuaro knows that when borders become inclusive through deliberate policy thrust, self-actualisation opportunities become the stars in the sky. Harmony becomes the word when people are no longer denied self-actualisation opportunities. Creation of self-actualisation opportunities for agitators in line with their capabilities is what Dr. Otuaro has activated in PAP. Here he is aided by his understanding that borders function differently under different circumstances. His understanding of border studies as a political scientist has come in handy for him in his management of the Amnesty Programme.

From Tompolo and Otuaro , only prepossessing stories of performance are told and heard in the key areas of pipeline surveillance and the Amnesty Programme. Communities and individuals hitherto involved in pipeline vandalism and crude oil theft are comfortable with their platforms for self-actualisation and social belonging. In the Amnesty Programme ex-agitators are daily kept busy with their self-actualisation engagement platforms. Both in the pipeline surveillance contract and the Amnesty Programme, individuals hitherto denied opportunities have been given the window for self-actualisation, identity negotiation, identity construction and social belonging. For Tompolo and Otuaro, borders are the sites for meaningful interaction, integration and self-actualisation.

Even without straining one’s productive energies in the deliberate creation of a noise equivalent in decibel to two irons beaten to awaken preternaturally deaf iguanas and salvage them from a waiting danger on the shoreline which may mark their obituary, it is known to all that that the pipeline surveillance contract and the Amnesty Programme are currently liberated from turbulence and undulations is a product of the border-management expertise of Tompolo and Otuaro who have roots deeply buried in border studies, particularly the social construction of borders that see and designate borders as a site for meaningful interaction and integration, where opportunities for self-actualisation and social belonging are fully explored without encumbrances thrown up by border exclusivity.

Dr. Ekanpou writes from Akparemogbene, Delta State