Dipo Olowookere
By Dipo Olowookere
President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday explained in Japan why his administration partially closed the Nigeria-Benin Republic border.
Mr Buhari, who is presently in the Asian country for the 7th Tokyo International Conference for African Development (TICAD7), in Yokohama, said the limited closure of Nigeria’s western border was to allow security forces develop a strategy on how to stem smuggling and its wider ramifications.
Speaking with his Beninois counterpart, Mr Patrice Talon, President Buhari said he was worried at the massive smuggling activities, especially of rice, taking place on that corridor.
He expressed great concern over the smuggling of rice, stressing that it threatened the self-sufficiency already attained due to his administration’s agricultural policies.
“Now that our people in the rural areas are going back to their farms, and the country has saved huge sums of money which would otherwise have been expended on importing rice using our scarce foreign reserves, we cannot allow smuggling of the product at such alarming proportions to continue,” Mr Buhari stated.
Responding to the concerns raised by President Talon on the magnitude of suffering caused by the closure, President Buhari said he had taken note and would reconsider reopening in the not too distant future.
He, however, disclosed that a meeting with his counterparts from Benin and Niger Republics would soon be called to determine strict and comprehensive measures to curtail the level of smuggling across their borders.
Earlier, President Talon had said he called on the Nigerian President as a result of the severe impact the closure of the Nigerian border was having on his people.
President Buhari also received in audience, President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa during which issues of common bilateral relations especially, the killings of Nigerians in South Africa, were discussed. The matter will be further examined during the Nigerian leader’s official visit to Pretoria in October 2019.
