President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday confessed that the closure of Nigeria’s land borders for more than a year failed to achieve one of the major reasons for the action.
Buhari’s government had claimed that one of the major reasons for closing Nigerian land borders, and subjecting citizens to hardship as a result of the action, was to stop the inflow of arms and ammunition from neighbouring countries into Nigeria.
However, on Thursday, the president confessed that the measure failed when he said, “We closed our land borders here for more than a year, but arms and ammunition continued to flow illegally.”
This was contained in a statement by Femi Adesina, the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity.
According to Adesina, Buhari spoke at the State House, Abuja, while receiving in farewell audience, the outgoing Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General and Head of the United Nations Office for West Africa and the Sahel (UNOWAS), Mohammed Ibn Chambas.
He said that Muammar Gadaffi held a grip on power in Libya for 42 years by recruiting armed guards from different countries, who then escaped with their arms when the Libyan strongman was killed.
“They didn’t learn any other skill, than to shoot and kill. So, they are a problem all over the Sahel countries today,” the President said, adding:
“We closed our land borders here for more than a year, but arms and ammunition continued to flow illegally.
“As far as Libya remains unstable, so will the problem remain. We have to cope with the problems of development, as we can’t play hop, step and jump. But we will eventually overcome those problems,” Buhari said.