President Muhammadu Buhari has lamented on how some people are mercilessly against the development of Nigeria.

He expressed this on Friday after receiving briefings from the Professor Doyin Salami-led Presidential Economic Advisory Council (PEAC) at its 6th regular meeting in the State House, Abuja.

The President, in a statement by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, recounted that despite efforts to regulate importation and proliferation of some commodities by shutting land borders for more than a year, some Nigerians still found ways to evade the barriers to perpetuate smuggling of illicit commodities.

Adesina quoting Buhari stated that “Some people are mercilessly against this country.

“We closed the borders to control the smuggling of petroleum products, and check the influx of smuggled goods, arms and ammunition.

“That was when the Comptroller General of Customs called me, saying 40 tankers laden with petrol had been impounded. I told him to sell the fuel, sell the trucks, and put the money in the treasury.

“They still brought arms and ammunition into the country, brought in rice in vehicles and motorcycles. I said shoot anyone found illegally with AK-47, yet they haven’t stopped. People must show consideration for their own country.”

The President pledged the Federal Government would focus on greater development of irrigation facilities and encourage more people into agriculture.

Buhari disclosed that agriculture was a good way for the country to overcome economic challenges confronting it, stressing that “We need to go back to the land. Technology is doing away with petroleum, but we are lucky we have other resources, Gas, vast arable land, which we are not using enough.”