A LITTLE over a week ago, the Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service, Hameed Ali, reiterated his unsubstantiated belief that China’s giant developmental leap forward rested on its policy of border closure sometime in the past. He did not specify the exact period. Weeks earlier, he had said the closure lasted for 40 years. Two Fridays ago, however, after being excoriated by virtually every analyst in Nigeria and abroad, with many of them laughing at his anachronisms, he again repeated the same outrageous idea, this time halving the period of the closure to 20 years. But whether 40 years or 20 years, depending on what caprices seized him, it is on such disgraceful fallacies that Nigeria appears to be erecting and nurturing its economic policies. How many more such uninformed and abominable policies drive the Nigerian economy?
Just as criticism seemed to be mounting over the closure, the Customs boss began doubling down, informing Nigerians that President Muhammadu Buhari had consented to the extension of the border closure to the end of January. Yeah, just like that. There was no indication that the policy or its extension was debated at the Federal Executive Council (FEC) or at the National Economic Council (NEC). There was also absolutely no indication also that the Nigerian government carried out an extensive cost-benefit analysis, nor took into consideration losses sustained from manufactured goods stuck inside and outside Nigeria’s borders. The Nigerian government simply woke up one morning, and imbued with nationalist feelings, believed in its heart that closing land borders made sense and appealed to the emotions. And citing smuggling and crime as major reasons, particularly rice smuggling and cross-border crimes, the Customs, which has been the driver of the policy, if not the inspiration, decided all consequences should be damned.
Mr Ali’s reasoning is on the surface appealing, at least to the senses. He put his simple argument in ways that appeal to the uncritical mind, but, as it turned out, it was entirely fallacious. Said Mr Ali of the Buhari presidency: “This is the government that has insisted that we must grow Nigeria, eat Nigeria. China that we go there to buy almost everything we use, closed their bothers for how many years? They closed it for 40 years to the whole world and today they are great China. Don’t you want to be great Nigeria?…The notion that this border closure is what has created pressure on the suffering of the Nigerian citizens is unfounded. Before now, we have poor people. Before now, we have people who could not afford three square meals. Before now we have people who do not have jobs, so for anybody to come up with the idea that because we have closed border, all of these vices are being visited on us is completely unfounded. There are no statistics to support that claim. Two, the border closure is a win-win for Nigeria.”
Not done pandering to the whims of the presidency, and quoting unverified figures of the gains that have accrued from the closure, Mr Ali continued: “… Go to Abakaliki and talk to farmers. Go to Kebbi, ask the farmers today. Go to every part of Nigeria. There is a farmer who told me that before the closure of the border, he could hardly sell a truck of milled rice in two months. Since we closed the borders, he has not only been able to sell what he has, he has also been going after farmers to get paddy rice and they have put money down for him to deliver. Why do we begin to think that we must be fed by foreign countries? At what point do we think that we are independent? Any nation that cannot feed itself cannot claim to be independent. When you have a diplomatic row with the country you are getting your rice from, they will close the tap. What now happens?”
Not only are his arguments deeply troubling and mendacious, especially about China closing its borders for 20 or 40 years, he also tried to be nationalistic about rice imports, scaring Nigerians about rice exporters closing their rice export taps in case of diplomatic row. How anyone could make this utterly simplistic argument is beyond understanding at a time when there are scores of rice exporting countries struggling to muscle their way into Nigeria’s rice imports. But what is even more troubling is that after analysts had proved conclusively that China’s giant economic leap, which really began in 1979, was achieved over open borders and smart, modern economic policies, not the antiquated ones depleting and exhausting Nigeria, Mr Ali again exhibited his abysmal understanding of the implications of border closure for growth, development and Nigeria’s regional (ECOWAS) dominance. That the president okayed the heresy is a reflection of the absence of real and substantial debates in government, not to talk of their impatience with policy dissent and loathing for the acquisition of knowledge.
“The Chinese closed their doors for over 20 years and now they are on top,” thundered Mr Ali two Fridays ago at another forum, repeating the same condemnable tendentiousness that drove many analysts up the wall weeks ago when he first spewed the gibberish about border closures. “We need to close our own. There is nothing that is being produced today that we cannot consume in Nigeria. Our industrialists do not have to look out to find the market; we have it right here. And we need to grow that market.” Our industrialists do not have to look out, he says, we have it (the market) right here. Can a worse logic come from anywhere? If the market exists here, can it not be grown to satisfy export and increase national revenue?
But in the midst of this dangerous nationalist policies hurting trade and economic relations and damaging and even dooming Nigeria’s regional ambitions, former Ghanaian president John Mahama showed the benefit derived from leaders who seek and use knowledge. Contributing to the controversy — for it is not a debate since the Nigerian government had shut its ears to reason — the former Ghanaian leader suggested that other factors could be responsible for the smuggling that prompted Nigeria’s border closure. Said he: “It is problematic that sub-regional activities and trade should suffer because of domestic institutional weaknesses. Nigeria must invest in strengthening its institutions and systems that are responsible for the importation of illegal or prohibited goods.” Will Nigeria be persuaded? Not a chance. The country no longer has any regional ambition, and it now rests its international economic relations on antiquated ideas, embraces half-baked understanding of the developmental trajectories of other countries, and fears change and complexities like a plague.
Mr Ali says the borders will be opened on January 31, 2020. If the government is not shamed into relenting before that date, and is not so stubborn as to extend the closure beyond that capricious date as some people are advocating due to the accompanying advantages, Nigerians and their economy could be punished further for another two months or more. Nigerian leaders and policy makers may customarily be slow and indifferent to the role of facts, logic and analyses in the enunciation of major economic ideas, but hopefully they will be kind enough to disclose what the country has lost side by side with what it has gained through border closure. Hopefully, too, they will be honest enough to disclose the drawbacks.
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