Human rights lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Mr Femi Falana, has advised the Federal Government to end the closure of the land borders into the country. He said it would be in the national interest for the government to call off the border closure.
Rather than continue to close the land borders, Falana advised the Federal Government to “urgently dialogue with Nigeria’s neighbouring countries to jointly fight the menace of smuggling, which necessitated the border closure by Nigeria.”
The lawyer gave the advice in a statement on Thursday while delivering a paper on “Rule of Law, Good Governance and Economic Development” at the annual conference of the ECOWAS Court of Justice in Accra, Ghana.
He urged the Federal Government to reject the endorsement of its border closure policy by the International Monetary Fund, describing it as a deliberate design to weaken ECOWAS regional integration agenda.”
Falana argued that border closure was tantamount to imposing undue punishment on law-abiding corporate bodies and community citizens “because of the criminal activities of a few trans-border smugglers.”
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