When the Nigerian government closed the southern land borders, I wrote that it was a very bad policy. I argued that closing the land borders because the Nigerian Customs was struggling with curtailing petrol smugglers was a bad strategy. Yes, they should have fired the workers, and replaced them with people who were ready to do their work.
As the heat on why the border was closed intensified, the government shifted that it closed the border to stop the inflow of terrorists. Another nonsensical call since terrorists were not using legal entry points to enter Nigeria. Fellow Citizens, across all indicators, there was no single serious reason why Nigeria should have closed its land borders, considering the fact that Nigeria is the center of West Africa, and the economic fulcrum of the region. The Onitsha Main Market does not serve just Nigeria; it serves West Africa, as the largest open market in Africa on the volume of trade.
When the land border problem ended, Onitsha, Ibadan, Ife, Aba and most markets in Lagos lost significant customers to other markets as Togo, Benin, and others rerouted their trading patterns. We’re yet to recover from that border policy; Morocco was rewarded and even applied to become a member of ECOWAS even though it was not geographically located in West Africa.
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I served on the Board of a logistics company and I knew the trading pattern; pre- and post-closure trading volumes were significant. And if you extrapolate, the Central Bank of Nigeria began to lose the ability to defend the Naira immediately the closure began. Look at the date and check the correlation.
Understand that Nigeria is an informal economy and many of our market indicators are never captured in the government statistics. That explains why our stock market is worth about $50 billion when South Africa’s is close to $1 trillion. Nigeria does many things in the informal economy and that economy is BIG. Where am I going? The inflow of USD dollars through the land borders was significant, and when that stopped, reducing supply, Naira paid the price via poor Naira positioning.
In the spirit of the recent disclosures, I am asking the federal government to share the Lessons Learned from that Land Border Closure. Sure, it has been reopened but I still want to understand the logic of that mindless economic policy where we intentionally disarmed and destroyed hundreds of light manufacturers whose markets were in our neighbouring countries.
In other words, I want to read what was achieved and not achieved, and what the nation could do to avoid mindless policies in the future. Largely, I am looking for any thesis why the nation could have done that, to begin with. If they have good points, I will write and commend them. Nigerian government: why did you close the southern land borders only to re-open them without any explanation?
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Comment 1: You raise excellent points on the damaging economic impacts of the border closure, especially for small businesses and retailers reliant on cross-border trade. As an e-commerce consultant, I saw many Nigerian merchants struggle when trade flows were disrupted in the region.
Online sellers depending on customers from neighboring countries were severely affected. And as you mentioned, important informal trading channels were severed, restricting access to foreign currency critical for defending the Naira.
There is no doubt the policy created significant unintended consequences.
I hope the government does further analysis on the lessons learned and works to implement more targeted policies in the future that clamp down on smuggling without obstructing legal trade.
Thanks for sharing
When the Nigerian government closed the southern land borders, I wrote that it was a very bad policy. I argued that closing the land borders because the Nigerian Customs was struggling with curtailing petrol smugglers was a bad strategy. Yes, they should have fired the workers,… pic.twitter.com/jJWwSG4n7A
— Ndubuisi Ekekwe (@ndekekwe) December 23, 2023
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The lessons were negative, and they don’t wish to produce any document in that regard. Buhari was not just inept, he was a sadist too, but somehow those who claimed to love Nigeria supported him to be president, even when it was very palpable that he was a walking disaster.
Not many Nigerians are qualified to offer opinions on how to make Nigeria great, but in the spirit of democracy, let all those who think they have anything to say keep talking. The only thing many people are good at is making bad judgments and defending nonsense, and there’s no point discussing serious matters with such people.
When you are good your politics will be good too, so if the politics of most in Nigeria is bad, you can reach the conclusion yourself about who they are.