The Presidency on Friday rejected former Vice President Atiku Abubakar’s campaign pledge to “open the borders” if elected in 2027, insisting that Nigeria’s land borders are already open and challenging him to clarify what exactly he intends to change.
In a statement, the President’s Special Adviser on Media and Public Communication, Sunday Dare, noted that the Federal Government reopened most land borders in March 2024 and has not reversed the policy. He cited President Bola Tinubu’s formal opening of the Kamba border in Kebbi State on February 14, 2026, which he said had delivered both economic and diplomatic gains.
Dare asked which borders the African Democratic Congress (ADC) presidential candidate planned to open when legitimate movement and trade already take place under the existing framework. He warned that any talk of further relaxation must be accompanied by clear details on which controls would be removed, why, and what safeguards would prevent terrorism, arms trafficking, smuggling, human trafficking and other transnational crimes.
“An open border should not be confused with an uncontrolled border,” Dare stressed. Modern border management, he said, facilitates legitimate commerce while shutting out criminal networks through immigration and customs checks, intelligence sharing, surveillance technology and coordinated security operations.
He linked Nigeria’s security challenges in the North to instability across the Sahel and Lake Chad Basin, noting the country’s shared borders with Niger, Chad and Cameroon. Citing the Global Terrorism Index 2026, Dare said about 41 per cent of terrorist attacks occur within 50 kilometres of an international border, while roughly 64 per cent take place within 100 kilometres.
These figures, he argued, highlight the vulnerability of border communities and explain why security deployments in the Northeast and Northwest should not be misread as evidence of closed borders.
Dare called on Atiku, an experienced politician and former Vice President, to move beyond slogans and present a detailed alternative on border surveillance, intelligence cooperation, technology deployment and protection of border communities.
In a separate statement, Atiku dismissed President Tinubu’s recent pledge to work with governors on reducing public transport fares as a belated and desperate response to a cost-of-living crisis he accused the administration of creating.
Through his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, Atiku described the government’s claim of about 120,000 CNG vehicle conversions in more than three years as evidence of failure rather than progress. With roughly 14 million vehicles on Nigerian roads, the figure represents less than one per cent, he said.
“If Tinubu’s grand strategy for cushioning the consequences of his reckless and poorly thought-out subsidy removal is CNG conversion, then the admission that only about 120,000 vehicles have been converted… is not an achievement. It is an advertisement of policy failure,” the statement read.
Atiku argued that cheaper fuel, not last-minute transport promises, remains the real solution. He restated his proposal for a targeted, production-based and fiscally capped subsidy designed to ease the burden on ordinary Nigerians, insisting it must be transparent, audited and focused on consumers rather than “rich friends of the President and multinational companies.”
He accused the administration of removing subsidy without adequate cushions, watching transport and food prices soar, and only rediscovering the link between energy costs and transport fares as elections approach.
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