President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday, hinted of the possibility of re-opening Nigeria’s land borders very soon.
Buhari gave the hint after a closed doors meeting with the nation’s 36 state governors on the security challenges across the country.
He explained that the closure of the nation’s land borders was partly an attempt to control the smuggling of weapons and drugs.
At the end of the meeting held at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, the Presidency issued a statement quoting Buhari as asking the state governors to work more with traditional rulers and community members to improve local intelligence gathering that will aid the work of security agencies.
The statement issued by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, was titled “President Buhari charges governors to work with traditional rulers for local intelligence.”
“Now that the message has sunk in with our neighbours, we are looking into reopening the borders as soon as possible,” the President said.
Shehu said the President, who listened to presentations by a governor from each of the six geo-political zones on their specific security challenges, recalled that in the old order, communities identified newcomers and passed information to constituted authority.
“The sub-region is no longer safe, more so with the collapse of the former Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi’s regime and the cross border movement of weapons and criminals. “Governors must work with traditional rulers. Try and work with traditional rulers to boost intelligence gathering,” Shehu quoted the President as saying.
