Despite the trail of anguish by Nigerians, especially the communities along the borders and the issue raised by the ECOWAS Commission on the partial closure of Nigerian land borders, Nigerian officials are busy counting the gains of such a faulty decision.
Nigeria recently closed its land borders with Niger, Benin, Chad and Cameroon and this action has affected cross border trading and pushed up prices of commodities that pass through these borders. The ECOWAS Parliament has also warned that the closure of borders with West African neighbours might hamper free trade and movement within the sub-region.
Mr. Moustapha Lo, ECOWAS Parliament Speaker, said at the 2nd Extraordinary Session of the ECOWAS Parliament in Monrovia that the action taken by Nigeria was against the spirit of the protocol on free movement of persons and goods within the region.
But Nigerian officials see it differently. For them, the closure in the last one month has started throwing up more issues hitherto believed to be normal, including the quantity of petroleum products, especially petrol and diesel consumed daily in Nigeria.
According to the officials, Nigeria has been taking stock of its action since it sealed the borders, pending the re-negotiation of ECOWAS protocol on free movement and trade which the affected countries have consistently refused to do.
For instance, the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) reported a dip in the quantity of petrol and diesel consumed daily within the country as a result of the border closure.
The state-owned oil giant said that the daily consumption of petrol had dropped from about 60 million litres to 48 million litres, an indication that a large portion of the imported petrol is ferried illegally across to neighbouring countries, while the price of diesel has dropped because smuggling of the product outside the country has stopped.
Mr. Mele Kyari, the Group Managing Director of the NNPC, twitted on September 22, on his twitter handle @MKKyari that petrol lifting in the NNPC depots has dropped. The Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA), which is in charge of petroleum products supply and distribution has also reported a decline in the supply of petrol.
Aside from petroleum products, Nigerian officials have said that the closure of the border has checked the influx of smuggled foreign rice, a naughty issue that has worried the country over the years. Nigerians, according to the authorities, have started patronising home grown rice and food, thus encouraging farmers to go into more production and boosting the reform in the agriculture sector. Nigeria is insisting that the influx of imported rice from Benin, Chad, Niger and Cameroon is hampering its the food security initiatives.
Supporting the move to stop the influx of foreign rice through the borders, Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN), has assured Nigerians that farmers would work harder to increase local production of the rice.
Mr. Victor Korede, the South-West RIFAN Vice President, said that the border closure was an economic advantage to farmers, and stressed: ““Food security will be enhanced, a nation that cannot feed itself is a slave to other nations; we shall eat what we produce and our foreign reserve will grow.’’
An economist, Mr. Adebayo Ademuwagun, said that local rice production has increased by 60 percent to more than 4.8 million tons since 2013.
Nigeria is also counting its blessing with the curtailment of the influx of smuggled vehicles.
Mr. Hameed Ali, the Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), said that 90 percent of cars smuggled into the country are displayed for sale across the country.
Ali said that Nigeria has embarked on raids on various car marts to ensure a complete crackdown on smuggling and save the nation of revenue loss.
Nigeria, he noted, needs revenue for development, hence, it become necessary to collect duties on those smuggled vehicles.
He also said that Nigeria made more than $38 million (N115 billion) in September, the highest so far since the closure of the borders.
Meanwhile, Mr. Adams Oshiomole, National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), has warned that the borders will be closed until the Chad, Niger, and Benin comply with ECOWAS protocols.
The Nigerian Senate on Sept. 25, 2019 passed a resolution commending the border closure to solve the persistent smuggling into the country.
President Muhammadu Buhari said that the closure was already yielding positive results for the economy.
Buhari, who stated on September 20, 2019 when he received a delegation from the Nigerian Association for Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA), explained that the closure was caused by non-adherence to the business ideals that are inimical to the development of Nigerian economy.
”After many years of diplomacy and aggressive regulatory oversight which yielded few results, we decided to close our land borders for a limited time to assess the impact of this measure,’’ he explained.
Although, the arguments of the Nigerian authorities sound good, but the embarrassing border closure cannot take the place of a firm trade policy. It has also exposed the weakness of the border security agencies in policing the borders since the same results could have been achieved by beefing up security at the borders without closing them. This action therefore contravenes the ECOWAS protocol on free movement of persons and goods by a clear leader in the sub-region.
MM/GIK/APA