Buhari Speaks On Closure Of Nigeria’s Border

Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria’s president on Wednesday gave reasons for the partial closure of Nigeria’s border with the Benin Republic.

Naija News reports that Buhari cited the reasons not to be unconnected to the massive smuggling activities, especially of rice, taking place on that corridor.

President Buhari stated this when he had an audience with his Beninois counterpart, Patrice Talon, on the margins of the Seventh Tokyo International Conference for African Development (TICAD7), in Yokohama, Japan on Wednesday.

The President, who expressed great concern over the smuggling of rice, said it threatened the self-sufficiency already attained due to his administration’s agricultural policies.

In his words, Buhari said; “Now that our people in the rural areas are going back to their farms, and the country has saved huge sums of money which would otherwise have been expended on importing rice using our scarce foreign reserves, we cannot allow smuggling of the product at such alarming proportions to continue.”

Buhari’s statement was made known by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina.

Adesina in his statement said the limited closure of the country’s western border was to allow Nigeria’s security forces to develop a strategy on how to stem the dangerous trend and its wider ramifications.