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 undulations that stifle growth and self-actualisation projections. Burdened with these national assignments, Tompolo and Dr.
Borders were chiefly conceptualised as geographical constructs, cartographically marked and indicated by lines and divisions. With the reconceptualisation, 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. Right from when this national task was contractually thrust on Tompolo, he knew 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 …
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