Nigerian Rice Trader Who Lost N10 Million To Border Closure Blames ‘Adverse Policies’ Of Govt

Nigeria government’s decision to close all land borders to imports has continued to generate reactions from businessmen, groups and neighboring countries.

A rice dealer at the popular Wuse Market in Abuja, Chukwudi Nwobodo, who spoke to THE WHISTLER said the border closure and other policies of the government were hurting traders in the country.

“Personally, I invested over 10 million in rice business which is a huge sum, currently am in debt; I can’t even account for the capital I invested.

“The worsening economy is responsible, because of adverse policies of the government.

“Customer patronage has reduced due to lack of sale. Civil servants cannot even make purchases, and often they buy on credit.”

On how the border closure has affected rice business he revealed that while borders were closed in the southern parts of the country, borders around the north, especially Katsina were still porous.

“The government shut down boarders around the South West, South-south and South-East regions of the country and allowed some borders open in the North.”

“Currently foreign rice is still smuggled into the country through the katsina border. The only people who access it are the northerners and they sell it to us at an inflated rate.

“If a Yoruba or an Igbo man attempts to access it directly the custom will seize it and broadcast it on the TV, while the same atrocity is been perpetrated by others and they go scot-free.

He accused the Nigerian Custom Officials at the border posts of corruption and explained that they demand for bribes from smugglers to bring in foreign rice.

“One of the dealers said the custom charges a bus load of rice N300,000 to get to Abuja from Katsina.”

Nwobodo decried the ripple effect of corrupt custom officials allowing foreign goods into the country when borders are officially closed, saying it leads to inflation of prices of goods.

According to him the price of foreign rice has risen from N16,000 to N23,000 in less than two weeks of border closure while local rice moved from N16,000 to N21,000 depending on the quality.

Efforts to get the official reaction of the Nigeria Customs Service were unsuccessful but a deputy comptroller general who spoke to THE WHISTLER on condition of anonymity admitted that smuggling was still going on at the borders.

“I will tell you the truth. People are still smuggling goods into the country from all the borders. It is not only borders in the north. But why it is more pronounced in the north is because borders there are more porous. It’s a wide expanse of land and smugglers even know the routes better than many Customs officials,” he revealed.

However, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama on Monday November 4 said the federal government in its attempt to adjust its position on border said ECOWAS countries must ensure that goods being imported into the country must have minimum of 30% local content.

According to Onyeama, the federal government has given conditions to ECOWAS countries seeking re-opening of the land borders which were shut since August 2019, vowing that Nigeria will no longer tolerate repackaging of imported products.