Ending the border closure crisis

WE ARE DAILY WITNESSING INCREAS ING parallel and stoic divergence in the views held by government officials on the one hand, and manufacturers and traders on the other hand, on Nigeria’s continued land border closure which has affected...

ARE DAI LY WITNESSING INCREASING parallel and stoic divergence in the views held by government officials on the one hand, and manufacturers and traders on the other hand, on Nigeria’s continued land border closure which has affected free movement goods and persons as opposed to the ECOWAS protocol on free goods and human movement within the sub region.

The latest to join the argument on the government’s side is Godwin Emefiele, the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), who says if the border closure is sustained for the next two years, issues of smuggling, insurgency, banditry and kidnapping will be totally eradicated.

While responding to questions after his lecture at Edo State University, Iyamho at the weekend, said the border closure was capable of tackling all security challenges currently being experienced in the country.

He explained that if the youth who were in these vices were gainfully engaged in meaningful activities, the insecurity would reduce to the barest minimum.

“I can tell you that if our borders remain closed for two years, the issue of ‘Boko Haram’, Kidnapping, Banditry and ‘Yahoo-Yahoo’ will stop.

“CBN will promote this policy by making sure that we produce what we consume and eat what we produce,” he said.

He vowed that the apex bank would not allow the country to be used as a dumping ground for smuggled goods. He also decried the actions of some neighbouring countries which he said was not helping matters.

He was not happy that when Nigeria increased import duty on rice to discourage importation, those neighbouring countries reduced their own duties to get rice importation to be smuggled to the country.

“We no longer want what they are importing to our country because we can produce them and CBN will do everything possible to promote domestic products,” he said.

Also last week, the comptroller general of the Nigeria Customes Service, Hameed Al, said Nigerians must endure short term pains occasioned by the land border closure to enjoy long term.

“All those things they are bringing into our country are aimed at bringing us to our knees. We must reach out to Nigerians for them to know the deadly effect of what they are consuming.

“We are consuming expired foreign rice. When it causes cancer, we would begin to find who to blame. What they (importers) do is that they polish and re-bag the rice after polishing it with chemicals for unsuspecting consumers to eat,” he stated.

As far as the government officials are concerned, the only solution to the incident of smuggling across the borders is to shut the borders.

However, the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, has advised the government to address the causes of smuggling as border closure is not a sustainable solution. Muda Yusuf, the director-general, Lagos Chamber of Commerce, (LCCI),, who spoke on behalf of the chamber, called on the federal government to address the root causes of rice smuggling, rather than the border closure policy of the government which he said is not a sustainable solution.

He explained that there was need for government to address challenges as the domestic capacity to produce competitively in quality and price, infrastructure and connectivity in moving the product from one part of the country to another and others.

He further urged the govWE ernment to bring in technology into agriculture and encourage more commercial farming, while building domestic capacity in rice production.

He added that government should change tariffs, stating that domestic import tariffs are too high.

“How can you have tariffs of 30-70 per cent even for intermediate products? Our ports are in a very bad shape.”

Continuing, Yusuf said: “We have to deal with fundamental issues otherwise you make the citizens to suffer unnecessarily. We need to create infrastructure for agriculture to support the population, and instead of closing the border, which is creating more poverty. Let’s address the insecurity situations across our border. You cannot say institutions have failed and get citizens to pay the price of those institutions. We have a lot of legitimate exporters who exports products to the West African sub regions, their businesses are down and people are suffering.”

“A lot of imports that come to the sub region come first to Nigeria and from here the imports are distributed to other countries and all that have stopped. We have people trading their products on the ETLS (products registered to be traded in the sub region) the closure of the border has stopped trading activities in the ETLS”, he said.

The continued border closure is anti business in the sub region as well as a potent cause of economic and political crisis in the sub region. Already, the governments of Niger Republic and Ghana have threatened to stop doing business with Nigeria. And in the weeks ahead, it will not be a surprise if many more countries take on Nigeria on the issue.

Like the LCCI suggested, Nigeria should address the causes of smuggling and make Nigeria business friendly. We must reduce our duties on imports for cargoes to come to our ports. Commercial farming, as against the small farming that is happening here, should be encouraged.

For sure, we cannot shut our borders for ever. So, let’s get the other countries around the negotiating table and thrash out the issues. That is the way to go.