Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has said he will reopen Nigeria’s land borders if elected president.
The African Democratic Congress presidential candidate made the pledge while addressing supporters in a video circulating online and shared by ADC chieftain, Dele Momodu, on Friday.
Atiku said the closure of Nigeria’s borders with neighbouring countries had negatively affected transborder trade and contributed to unemployment among young people.
“The Northern states is bordering Cameroon, Chad, Niger, Benin Republic.
“And you close all those borders. All our young men who are doing trading between these countries, they carry goods across, they do this and that, all what we call transborder trade is a legitimate business,” Atiku said.
He said many young people who previously operated businesses with capital running into millions of naira had been forced out of business following the border closures.
“All the upcoming young men and women who used to have a capital of 10 million, 20 million, and they were employing two, three other people, and then all of them went bankrupt and unemployed. How can there be security?” he asked
