The federal government has shut Nigeria’s land borders to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) for more than 15 months now. Two weeks ago Sabo Nanono, Nigeria’s minister of agriculture announced a rather strange solution to the controversial policy.
At a seemingly belated distribution of relief materials to peasant farmers in Kebbi state who lost their crops to devastating flood, Nanono warned that the borders would remain shut and the keys thrown into the lagoon. The meaning is that government has no plans to open the borders.
Nigeria’s economy and its 102 million impoverished people toiling to eke out a living below poverty line are already paying a rather disproportionate prize for the border closure.
Nigerian manufacturers have lost their export market in ECOWAS. Manufacturers’ unplanned inventory (stock of unsold goods) surged by close to 30 per cent in the second quarter of 2020 immediately after the borders were closed. Food inflation has climbed above 16 per cent as Nigeria toils to compensate for the huge supply deficit emanating from border closure.
The federal government itself knows the negative impact of the border closure. Last month government stealthily allowed the Dangote Group to export its goods through the borders. Other manufacturers are worried about the brazen discrimination.
When the federal government closed the nation’s borders in August 2019, economy watchers merely dismissed the closure as an ad-hoc measure to allow time for government to knock some sense into the nation’s corrupt customs service before reopening the borders within a few months. Now with the closure heading into a second year, it is obvious that the rulers of Nigeria have mistaken border closure for an efficient customs service.
Modern states are not run with closed borders. The border closure is an indictment of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), an organization that has become the closest friend of Nigeria’s army of smugglers.
Border closure emanated from government conviction that the NCS was no longer capable of fending off smugglers as its officers and men have become part and parcel of the economic sabotage. That position of government is incontrovertible.
The NCS is incorrigibly corrupt. Government had closed the borders to halt massive smuggling of rice and arms, among other items. It was also noticed that subsidized, imported petrol was smuggled into ECOWAS countries with grave consequences to Nigeria’s economy.
Those were established facts which the NCS cannot deny. The smuggling of subsidized, imported petrol into ECOWAS was done in giant articulated trucks capable of hauling 33, 000 litres at a go.
Those giant trucks do not slip through bush paths to deliver their cargoes. NCS officials open the borders for the trucks to pass and they get their cuts from the illegal transactions. That explains why NCS officials are richer than Nigeria. Ironically, the federal government sees the comptroller-general of NCS as an angel.
A man who presides over a customs service that cannot protect the borders against smugglers has no business retaining his job a day longer than when the borders were closed. Even if he is not getting his cuts from the messy deals at the borders, his field commanders have sufficiently tarnished his image to warrant the deafening calls for his removal.
The comptroller-general of NCS should have been the first casualty of the massive smuggling that triggered the controversial border closure. Government had no reason to shut the borders and punish innocent Nigerians.
The right solution would have been to replace the head of the NCS with someone who can stop smugglers in their tracks.
Nigeria should be making N4 trillion a year from import duties. Ironically the year the NCS recorded N1 trillion as import duty because of the devaluation of the naira, it rolled out the drums to celebrate what apparently was a colossal failure.
When the NCS pays N1 trillion into government treasury as imports duty revenue, its officers and men would have pocketed at least N3 trillion. NCS should be made to account for the torment it has inflicted on Nigerians and foreigners doing legal businesses across the borders. Border closure borders on throwing away the baby with the bath water. It is the corrupt men in the NCS that should be thrown away.
The federal government should replace the comptroller-general of NCS with a bold and honest person, give the new man the target of delivering N3 trillion per annum as import duty revenue and then open the borders to reduce suffering in Nigeria.
NCS administrative cost should be doubled from seven to 14 per cent, as an incentive for meeting the new revenue target. Border closure is counter-productive. It borders on chasing shadows rather than the cause. It has failed to stop the flow of arms to the religious fanatics that have pinned down Africa’s largest army for 11 years in the north-east. It has failed to stop the flow of smuggled rice into Nigeria. It has only succeeded in raising food inflation as the bribe paid by smugglers to NCS officials is factored into the cost of goods and passed to consumers.
The border closure is Nigeria’s strange way of tackling problems. Men like Sabo Nanono have mistaken it for a permanent solution to a failed customs service.
The war against smuggled rice should have been fought in mechanized farms and modern rice mills that can process the farm produce to international standard. The battle should not have been taken to the borders. The federal government believes that Nigerians would eat local rice if they cannot find imported ones. The truth is that local rice is just not there in sufficient quantity.
Nigeria consumes 6.7 million tons of rice annually. It produces 3.5 million tons locally. The deficit of 3.2 million tons is what drove the price from N17, 000 per 50kg bag to N35, 000.
The solution to the problem should have been a concerted effort at mechanizing rice farming to attain self-sufficiency. At the moment, peasant farmers using back-breaking instruments produce close to 70 per cent of the rice consumed in Nigeria. They toil to eke out 3 tons of rice per reluctant hectare of land. Mechanised farming yields six tons of rice per hectare of land.
Nigeria treats agriculture as an all-comers affair. That leaves the nation’s food security in the hands of peasants living on subsistent farming. Government must learn to treat agriculture as the professional business meant for experts. Sabo Nanono’s option is deadly. His option, not the keys of Nigeria’s borders, should be thrown into the lagoon.
