![](\"http:\/\/arewa.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/El-Rufai-claims-Northern-Nigeria-is-backward-poor-while-South-is-developing.jpg\")
<\/p>\nAccording to him, it is unfair for smaller countries to be sabotaging a big country like Nigeria.<\/p>\n
El-Rufai, who was a special guest at the graduation of Senior Course Three of the Nigeria Customs Command and Staff College, Gwagwalada, Abuja on Friday, said the step taken was commendable.<\/p>\n
He explained that Nigeria like any other country likes to trade with other countries but added that there must be fairness, NAN reports.<\/p>\n
The governor noted that closure of the borders should be sustained until there were established deals that covered every country.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe partial closure of borders is highly commendable. Nigeria is the largest country in West Africa and the continent and it is clear that our neighbors are using our openness and brotherhood to trade, to exploit us.<\/p>\n
\u201cI fully support and subscribe to the closure of borders and we should sustain it for as long as possible.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to do this for our country to have a fair deal and for our manufacturers to be protected.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll those talking about free trade or preaching about it today closed their borders for centuries and decades ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cNigeria must grow its own internal capacity, we will not do so if we allow our neighbours to use the porosity of our borders to sabotage our economy,\u2019\u2019 he explained.<\/p>\n
El-Rufai, however, commended the physical development at the customs command college in Gwagwalada.<\/p>\n
He lauded the effort of the current customs boss for his reform agenda.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am impressed with what I have seen on the ground in terms of physical development as well as the content.\u2019<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State has backed the Federal Government\u2019s closure of Nigeria\u2019s land borders. According to him, it is unfair for smaller countries to be sabotaging a big country like Nigeria. El-Rufai, who was a special guest at the graduation of Senior Course Three of the Nigeria Customs Command and Staff College, Gwagwalada, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":133594,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[2658,13265,13478],"class_list":["post-168144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-a","tag-borders-closure","tag-nasir-elrufai"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=168144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168144\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/133594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=168144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=168144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=168144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}