By PHILIP YATAI

The National Boundary Commission (NBC) says it has made significant progress in resolving the Nigeria-Benin international boundary dispute.

The Director-General of the commission, Mr Adamu Adaji, stated this on Sunday in Abuja, while assessing the impact of President Bola Tinubu?s administration after two years in office.

Adaji said that the commission had reactivated intervention on the boundary which was at some point stalled by the Benin Republic as far back as 2012.

He, however, said that the commission had been able to get the Benin team back to the discussion table for a quick resolution of the dispute.

?We are in the process of trying to resolve the different positions of the disputed areas with respect to the southern sector, which is the Ajara River sector and also the northern sector, which is the Ilo-Borogu sector,? he said.

He added that a joint committee had been set up to revisit the areas, search for more documents, and involve experts to help interpret some of the documents.

He explained that the disagreement stemmed from the different understanding of the description of the boundary in the two sectors.

The D-G said that in the Ilo-Borogu sector, which involves the states of Kwara, Niger up to Kebbi, the issue involved the use of legal instruments.

He said that the confusion was between the treaty of 1906 and the later description of 1960.

?We tend to differ, but we have agreed that we are going to study the two documents critically and see what we as Nigeria can make of the two documents.

?The idea is to determine which one of the two will be more beneficial to Nigeria because the interest of Nigeria is always apparent in our operations and activities,? he said.

In the case of Ajara River, Adaji said the two countries disagree on which channel of the river to use.

He said that the Benin Republic was laying claim to a particular channel, while Nigerian was also laying claim to a different channel.

?We are going to look at the documents critically, if need be, explore the colonial administration?s archives to see which of the two documents is really the correct one to define the boundary,? he said.

Speaking on challenges, the NBC boss said: ?We?ve had instances where political will on the part of some governments have been quite discouraging.

?It is very disappointing when we reached agreements and resolutions but some of the governments concerned lack the political will to enforce them?. (NAN)

Update news