Vice President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo has begged Nigerians to bear with the Federal Government over the closure of land borders with neighboring countries.
The VP while speaking at the ongoing town hall meeting in Edo State said the border closure is in the interest of producers and farmers in Nigeria.
Osinbajo said the borders were closed because Federal Government wants neighboring countries to take Nigeria very seriously.
According to Punch, the Vice President said this while responding to a question from a market woman, Mrs Christiana Omokaro, who cried to him about high cost of rice and other foodstuffs in the market.
Osinbajo went on to explain that the land borders were closed to get the attention of neighbouring countries to take more seriously the question of policing the borders, Punch reports.
He said prosperous countries grow what they eat because they did not allow any country to bring goods into their country.
“Part of the reasons for shutting the border is the smuggling that has been going on. If we continue to allow the Chinese and others to continue to bring in all those things, we will kill farming completely and most of our people will not be employed.
"There may be some pain in other to gain. The countries of the world that are prosperous didn’t allow anybody to bring in anything to their countries. They made sure they grow what they eat. I can assure you that very soon you will see a great deal of progress. You will see more of our own commodities coming into the market. If we allow our own people grow these things, our people will prosper. The only way our people can prosper is if we let them use the opportunity that they have such as farming, fishing and others.
“We are going to make sure that commodities are cheaper. We must bear in mind that the reason today some commodities are more expensive is because we stopped smuggling. We have to encourage our local farmers so that our local farmers can prosper,” he said.
Meanwhile, Human rights lawyer, Femi Falana has called on the Federal Government to reopen Nigeria’s land borders.
The lawyer said that it would be in the interest of Nigeria to reopen the borders because neighboring countries may in turn impose a ban on goods being exported from Nigeria by air.