President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday urged Nigerian neighbors to bear with the country over the closure of the nation’s land borders. The president, while responding to pleas by Ghanaian President, Mr. Nana Akufo-Ado, that Nigeria should reopen its land borders, expressed regrets that the partial border closure was having a “negative economic impact on our neighbors.”
Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, said in a statement that Buhari, at a meeting in London with Akufo-Addo, explained that the borders were not closed mainly to forestall the smuggling of only food items, notably rice, but to fight the influx of arms and ammunition, and hard drugs into the country. The two leaders held the bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the UK-Africa Investment Summit 2020 in the United Kingdom.
Buhari told his Ghanaian counterpart that he could not keep his eyes open and watch youths being destroyed through cheap hard drugs as well as allow a compromise of the country’s security through the influx of small arms with impunity.
He added that although the border closure was having a “negative economic impact on our neighbors, we cannot leave our country, particularly the youths endangered.”
Buhari noted that the Sahel region had been saturated with small arms, which accounted for severe security challenges in Mali, Chad, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Nigeria.
“We are in fact the biggest victims,” he stated. Buhari vowed not to reopen the borders until the committee set up on the matter submits its final report and decision taken on it.