Border Closure Has Come To Stay - Joseph Attah

On Thursday, the Federal Government announced that it has arrested 239 illegal immigrants and impounded 34,221 bags of smuggled rice, 8,982 Jerry cans of fuel and 991 drums of fuel
about to be exported illegally.

This was disclosed at a sensitisation programme organised for officers of the National Orientation Agency, media practitioners and farmers’ associations in Owerri, Imo state by the Deputy Controller of Customs and Spokesman of the Federal Government Strategic Communication Team, Mr. Joseph Attah.

He went on to say that all the impounded goods including 399 vehicles, life cartridges and hard drugs impounded were worth N2.5 billion.

According to him, the Federal Government set up a team, made up of joint forces of the Armed Forces, the Police, Customs and Immigrations, to monitor the implementation of the partial closure of land borders since August 20, 2019.

He said the borders were closed based on the rampant flagrant abuse of officially established ECOWAS protocols by some neighbouring African countries as well as to secure, build and stimulate economic activities in the country.

"The border closure has come to stay until Nigeria’s neighbours show serious commitment to implementing all the protocols on the movement of goods and services within its borders."

He said that no country should hide under the guise of Trade Liberisation Scheme (TLS) to bring in goods without 50 percent value addition, stressing that almost 90 percent of goods that come into Nigeria, unfortunately are foreign made.

“Flagrant abuse of established ECOWAS protocol is making our job difficult and we have raised this issue at various Customs fora with a number of MOUs written and signed to remedy the anomaly but all to no avail.
“Nigerians are industrious and business-inclined but regrettably, everything produced here is believed to be inferior to foreign products and we find it difficult to support our local farmers,” he said.

Attah said the aim of the programme is to create awareness for stakeholders who will take the sensitization down to the grassroots, straining that NOA was very strategic in creating the needed sensitization on the border closure.