CONFLICT MONITORING AND SECURITY RISK ASSESSMENT OF SEME BORDER OF NIGERIA AND REPUBLIC OF BENIN

Abstract

Conflict Monitoring is a crucial exercise in peace building. It is often designed to detect early warning signs of potential intra/interpersonal, intra/inter-organisational and other forms of conflict. Monitoring and Evaluation should be a major component of any development process. However, in many countries of the Sahel region this crucial component of development is neglected in their border regions. The issue is not a dearth of national policy/ies on Monitoring and Evaluation but that of the political will of governments to enforce the implementation of such policies. The extrapolation of evaluation   policies into constructive actions germane to development often suffers governmental neglect. This paper presents the report of the strategies deployed in conflict monitoring and risk evaluation of the Seme Border of Nigeria and the Republic of Benin, with a view to enhancing full understanding of the risks inherent in security operations at the border, designing a pro-active agenda in the areas of profiling, targeting and selecting as preventive diplomacy against further degeneration of activities in the area and resultant threat to the security of both countries.