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‘Border closure has reduced crime, inflow of fake goods’

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Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Adeniyi Adebayo, has said that the closure of land border since August has greatly reduced the inflow of small arms, weapons and drugs in the country.

Adebayo also said the entry and repackaging of expired goods from developed countries through other African countries has stopped.

The minister, who stated this at a media briefing in Abuja on Monday, also noted that goods used to be repackaged and channelled into Nigeria through neighbouring African countries.

He said this should not have happened if the borders were secured.

The minister explained that the government had to sensitise local communities on the negative effect of smuggling, the offence and the need to understand that the mystery of smugglers beating the system should not be condoned

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Adebayo said:

“There was a meeting in the ECOWAS Commission with three African countries – Benin Republic, Niger and Nigeria – basically to address the issues on the joint border patrol. One of the things that led to this border closure is the issue of non-compliance with the border treaty, whereby goods that are supposed to come into the country are supposed to be exported and collected by the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) at the border intact without breaking the seal.

“Again, the border cannot be re-opened until the committee is certain that all countries involved are respecting the ECOWAS Protocol. The agreement was that neighbouring countries are to activate the joint border patrol team comprising the Customs and all security agencies involved.

“The main reason this meeting was held with this countries is the non-compliance with the border treaty. It led to the reason the team went to Jibia, the border town between Nigeria and Niger Republic. What we saw at Jibia is that on our border side, there were a lot of filling stations that you could not explain how a small town like Jibia would have almost hundreds of filling stations. On the other side of Jibia, there were warehouses keeping rice and other goods.

Adebayo regretted that border communities claimed they did not have much to do, such as having a small scale industry for jobs.

So, JAIZ Bank and the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) were contacted, since they have financial inclusion programme with women as their target.

“In this part of the country, you see a lot of men but the women sit idle at home, doing nothing. The idea is for them to put some intervention programmes in place so that these local communities and the youth will not engage in smuggling activities.

“It is also worthy of note that Nigeria has been given until December 31, 2019 to finalise its negotiation and submit the list to ECOWAS secretariat for approval,” he said.

 

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