Border Closure: Ghana Pleads With FG To Allow Over $60m Annual Exports To Nigeria

Following Nigeria’s closure of its seme border, Ghana’s foreign and regional integration minister, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, has urged the federal government to allow entry of  goods from her country into Nigeria.

President Muhammadu Buhari had directed the shutdown of Nigeria’s land borders in August in a bid to checkmate smuggling of goods into the country.

Commenting on the closure, Botchwey, during a meeting with Nigeria’s high commissioner Olufemi Abikoye, said Ghanaian traders have been subjected to several losses because their goods have been detained for weeks at the Seme border.

Reports show that in 2018 alone, Ghana exported over $60 million worth of goods to Nigeria. Some of the country’s exports to Nigeria include cocoa to ($12.71m), animal, vegetable fats and oils, cleavage products ($11.82M), tanning, dyeing extracts, tannins, derivatives, pigments ($9.50M) and beverages, spirits and vinegar ($6.96M), among others, to the country.  

Botchwey further stated that the Ghanaian government have decided to employ all diplomatic channels to ensure that Nigeria reopens its borders to the subregion for free movement of goods.

“As we speak, Nigerian goods are entering Ghana without any problem and I think that we should find ways of isolating the issues and the countries that you have problems with so that Ghana’s exports can enter your market without being lumped up with all these issues that have emerged,” she said.

In his response, Abikoye said Ghana was not the target of the border closure, but that it was a move to help the Nigerian economy.

He, however, assured the minister that Nigeria will collaborate with Ghana to find a lasting solution to the menace.