President Muhammadu Buhari, at a bilateral meeting with Mark Rutte, Prime Minister of The Netherlands, in New York, U.S., says Nigeria shuts its border against neighbouring countries to feed its citizens with what the country grows and curb smuggling.

Mr Femi Adesina, the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, indicated that the Buhari/Mark Rutte meeting took place on Friday, on the sidelines of the 76th UN General Assembly in New York.

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The president said Nigeria took decisions to shut the borders, to “eat what we grow, and curb smuggling”, noting that if that had not been done, “we would have been in serious trouble.

“We are lucky to have taken the decision when we did, otherwise things would have been impossible with the advent of COVID-19.”

On the spectre of military coups in West Africa, President Buhari told his guest that he was surprised at the attitude of those tampering with the Constitution of their countries, to stay longer in office.

He assured that ECOWAS was doing the needful to address the developments.

Prime Minister Rutte congratulated President Buhari on how he successfully leads a country of over 200 million people, wishing Nigeria greater advances.