Iyunade Adefisayo
President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday said that Nigeria was considering reopening the borders as soon as possible.
The Presidency made this known after the President met behind closed doors with the nation’s 36 state governors.
He explained that the closure of the nation’s land borders was partly an attempt to control the smuggling of weapons and drugs.
The Presidency in a statement quoted 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.”
-Advertisement-
READ ALSO: ASUU agreed to call off strike Dec 9 —Ngige
The President said: “Now that the message has sunk in with our neighbours, we are looking into reopening the borders as soon as possible.”
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,” the President said.
The President said his administration had done well in the North East and South-South, adding that the South-South situation was still worrisome.
“Every day I get situation reports about illegal refineries and the blowing up of pipelines. You must stop local rogues from sabotaging oil installations,” the President told the governors.
Buhari said: “Security is important and we must secure the whole country. We are thinking very hard on the issue of kidnapping. We will make it possible for the military to get to the bandits and kidnappers and eliminate them.’’
Buhari also assured the governors that the country’s military will continue to get the support needed to fight criminals.
“I am not going to the public to speak about the vehicles and equipment we have ordered. What I can say is that the military received armoured cars and other equipment and they are training the trainers. More of such equipment, including military aircraft will come in,” he said.
We do everything possible to supply quality news and information to all our valuable readers day in, day out and we are committed to keep doing this.
Your kind donation will help our continuous research efforts.
-Advertisement-
-Want to get the news as it breaks?-
