Dr. Alex Ter Adum, a member of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar's campaign team, has reacted to the claim made by the administration of President Bola Tinubu that the African Democratic Congress (ADC) presidential candidate does not understand how open borders work with border security.
Adum, while speaking during an interview with Arise News on Sunday, clarified that Atiku didn't promise to open the borders without adequate security protections. He made this clear while reacting to how the Tinubu administration shut down Atiku's recent promise to open Nigerian borders.
Speaking on the recent promise made by the ADC presidential candidate, Adum said that Atiku was mainly talking about how he would open the borders for legitimate businesses to ensure that they are able to connect with more people outside the country easily.
He said, "Atiku did not say, 'I will open borders without security protections.' He said, 'I will open the borders for legitimate legal businesses to ensure that people who previously were doing trade with 10 million, 20 million, who have been caged in because of the border spaces will be allowed to do their trade legitimately.'"
He continued, "Nigeria stands to benefit more if we are doing cross border trades because most of the neighbouring countries around Nigeria are economic dependencies. They depend on manufactured products from Nigeria."
"If you promote international trade intercourse within the region with Nigeria as the regional trade hub, then you are going to have significant economic returns for Nigeria. So Atiku's proposal is not independent of the security architecture that will protect our borders," he added.
Post a Comment