Atiku Says Buhari’s Border Closure Policy Is ‘Insane’

Former vice president of Nigeria Atiku Abubakar has described the border closure policy of the Federal Government as insane.

He  said Nigeria had  to rethink its “insane policy of border closures at a time it desperately needs them open to promote trade.”

In an article he released on Thursday,  titled, ‘How To Pull Nigeria From The Brink,’ Atiku added,  “We must, as a nation, begin to invest our resources wisely in order to maximize dividends. We must liberalize our land tenure system to make it possible and easy for some of the 27 million unemployed Nigerians to become farmers, even as sharecroppers.

 “We must cut our coat, not according to our size, but according to our cloth. Our Presidential Air Fleet of almost 10 planes should go. Our jumbo budgets for our legislature must go. The planned $100 million renovation of our Parliament must be cancelled. We cannot be funding non necessities with debt and not expect our economy to collapse.  

He added, “Our civil servants must come to the realization that Nigeria cannot sustain its size and profligacy. The same cost saving measures must be adopted by the states and council governments.”

According to him, if the country harnesses the huge opportunities of investing in  agriculture, manufacturing and Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) sectors, “then a new era of sustainability and prosperity beckons for Africa.”

Atiku said Nigeria was at the lowest point it  could be as a nation having over indulged in seemingly cheap loans and  quadrupled foreign debt in just four years. 
According to him, Taking more of such loans will just sink the country deeper and deeper into a quagmire. 
“What is certain is that we can not continue with things the way they are now, except we want to ensure an implosion of our dearly beloved nation, ” he stressed.

Atiku said the country’s  energies, resources and focus  must now be on how it could diversify its economy and not on how it could increase its expenditure.

According to him, Nigeria stands a chance to become Africa’s power house if it makes agriculture the primary sector of its  economy. He said the country could achieve that by leveraging on the African Continental Free Trade Area (AFCTA) agreement.

Atiku added that   the country could capture  a large portion of the $48 billion that the continent spends on food imports.if it got it right in the agric sector.

“In Nigeria, our diversification should embrace agriculture as the primary sector earmarked for development, because agriculture is a low hanging fruit, it is key to ensuring food subsistence, and with the recent signing of the African Continental Free Trade Area agreement (AFCTA), which favours Nigeria’s economy greatly, Nigeria can take advantage of this to become an agricultural powerhouse in Africa,” he said.

The former vice president added, “With about 60% of its land assessed as arable, I truly believe that Nigeria is capable of becoming the food basket of the rest of Africa.”

Atiku was optimistic that  Nigeria could easily become a value-added re-exporter of African coffee to the world and gain billions of dollars in exchange, saying that the   ACFTA agreement was meant to promote such values.

He said that Africa had the lowest intra- regional trade amongst the seven continents, adding that for that  to change, “Nigeria is key to altering this sad state of affairs. “