Nigerian Border Closure: Stranded Traders Lose Billions, Reminiscent Of 1984 Shut Down (Video)
The Oasis Reporters
August 22, 2019
By Greg Abolo
Many Nigerian traders are currently stranded at the Nigerian-Seme border, lodging in hotels as they hope against hope for an early reopening, after intermittent closures. A border official confided in our correspondent unofficially, that the move is meant to check the inflow or outflow of goods and services into or out of Nigeria.
Many travellers were Wednesday stranded at Nigeria and Benin Republic border as officials closed the border on both sides without formal notice.
“ I’ve been staying in a hotel for one week now”, Pupa John told us, speaking on his Glo line from Seme border. He said Nigerians make calls home, either with Glo or 9mobile lines to Nigeria.
Nigeria- Benin border, unarguably the busiest and the most prosperous is hardest hit, as reports reaching us from Chikanda (around Kwara state), Illela in Sokoto State, Maigatari in Jigawa State and Babura in Katsina state, passages are still carefully ongoing through porous footpaths.
An immigration officer who pleaded anonymity confirmed to The Guardian “that all land borders across Nigeria are closed which was an order from the federal government”.
“It is all borders across Nigeria. It was a presidential order.”
“It might last for the next three days.”
The Guardian also learned that this closure occurred as Nigeria is currently deploying an operation named Border Green for a period of 28 days.
During this mission, the police, immigration, army, customs and intelligence forces will verify the good execution of the injunctions concerning the prohibition of exported goods.
The officials will also focus on the prohibition of fraudulent exit of petroleum products, the fight against the importation of second-hand vehicles, the fight against the importation of rice and certain prohibited products for importation by land.
In Chikanda especially, the borders are closed, including the ones used by pedestrians, according to The Guardian.
“Even up till now Seme border is still very much closed with no one giving information to the passengers and it is putting pressure and unnecessary panic into people’s minds and has affected many things in Cotonou and at the border area. Exchange rate at the border has suddenly gone up and the price of fuel too.
I just called some people in Cotonu few minutes ago, the situation there is very sad to say the least”, commented a social media analyst.
There was a similar abrupt and sudden border closure under the then regime of former head of state, Major General Muhammadu Buhari. It was felt then that Nigeria’s currency, the Naira was being traded illegally abroad and the government decided to shut the borders for one week, so as to take the period to effect a change in the colours of the Nigerian currency notes. Many currency traders lost several millions in that operation, including Nigerians who had travelled out of base, leaving hordes of currency notes at home, since they could not rush back to take them to the very few and overcrowded bank branches available to people then in the 80s.
Meanwhile, former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan also changed some currency notes in design, denomination and colour, yet the borders remained open, and more than four years after leaving office, paying the old design currency notes into banks and in use in the markets, is still ongoing. The Nigerian currency is today, still being quoted and exchange rate still being determined largely by market forces in the secondary or Second Tier market.
While Nigeria’s second largest Port, Tin Can Island port is quoted as experiencing a 70 percent under utilization, the Seme Port in the tiny French speaking neighboring Republic of Benin is having an unprecedented boom, yet 85 percent or more of the imports into Benin Republic are meant for the Nigerian market. Hundreds of thousands of Nigerian traders have a chronic aversion to Nigerian ports due to the alleged high-handedness of the Country’s port officials and the alleged penchant to demand for huge and “fantastically corrupt” bribes.
Government policies also chase Nigerian importers to neighboring countries. They then snuggle their goods through unauthorized paths into the country, a system that can change, if Infrastructural facilities were in place and in standard conditions to enable production of goods within the country, and discourage importation, or make Nigerian made goods in the country, more competitive.
Additional reporting: The Guardian
