By Ropo Sekoni
Equally, many people may be wondering why we just close two out of four borders with the country.
Perhaps, many people are just knowing that Nigeria has many neighbours with which it is contiguous. These are Republic of Benin to the west; Niger Republic to the north; Chad to the northeast; and Cameroon to the east. And the novelty of the knowledge about Nigeria’s neighbours must have come from the ongoing closure of the borders between Nigeria and its western and northern neighbours: Benin and Niger republics.
Equally, many people may be wondering why we just close two out of four borders with the country. Certainly, it is not because there is no smuggling into Nigeria from the other two neighbours; Chad and Cameroon. As far back as the 1980s when I used to visit the University of Yaounde for academic conference from the University of Ife, smuggling of Peugeot cars and parts from Cameroon to Nigeria, even when there was a Peugeot assembly plant in Kaduna, was common knowledge. It is because of the intensity of the smuggling from Niger and Benin has become unmistakable and worrisome to those who see it as a problem that must be solved. It may not be surprising that while the northern and western borders are closed, smuggling could have increased in the remaining two, i.e. Chad and Cameroon. There is no guarantee that the border closure would not come to the turn of Chad and Cameroon as time goes on.
The recent observation by Nigeria’s Minister of Information: “What has happened is that there is an agreement among the ECOWAS member states that goods coming into Nigeria must be containerised and taken through the border where they can be assessed and attested that they are not smuggled items….However, this agreement has not been adhered to by our neighbours….We know that the closure is inflicting some collateral damages to many people but in the overall interest of Nigerians, we need to persevere and bear with the government so that our neighbours would be responsible and responsive” says a lot about the trade problem between Nigeria and two of its neighbours currently receiving federal government’s attention. And the minister’s observation calls (rightly) for a long-term solution to the time-honoured problem. What must not be missed when the time for long-term solution to the long-standing problem, currently receiving a temporary and drastic solution, comes is the need for a holistic approach.
First, a little history that can sketch out contours of a holistic approach to this problem. The political history of Nigeria (as it is today) is akin to the history of its four neighbours. They are all products of the imagination and desire of their colonial masters; Britain, France, and Germany for some time. People who smuggle today to Nigeria are largely descendants of the same ancestors, Fulani in northern tip of Nigeria and southern Niger and Yoruba for western Nigeria and eastern Benin.
The fact that these two sections have relations across borders is not unique for West Africa. There are Ewes in Togo next door to their cousins in Ghana; there are Ashanti in Ghana and Baoule in Cote d’Ivoire; and there are Yoruba in Benin and in Togo, etc. Such cross-border nationalities across the globe experience legal and illegal cross-border movement of goods and persons, where the governments on both sides look away. With respect to Nigeria, while products from Europe or Asia, such as rice, sugar, exotic spices may come from the former French colonies of Benin and Niger, so do products like Star, Guilder, Trophy beer and crude and refined petroleum go from Nigeria to Benin and Niger. For example, the contiguity between Maradi and Katsina (such that Nigeria has decided to extend its railway to Maradi and the proximity of Idi-Iroko to Porto Novo or Badagry to Seme makes smuggling as easy as it can get.
Readers of WikiLeaks revelations on Nigeria would recall that during the administration of Obasanjo, a man with a Yoruba name was the most notorious smuggler of stolen cars from Nigeria to Cotonou while another Nigerian from Katsina was the most notorious smuggler of luxury goods from Niamey to Nigeria. Smugglers can do their business without English and French, as those close to Niger can make do with Fulfulde or Hausa while those around Cotonou or Porto Novo can plan and execute crude and sophisticated smugglings in Yoruba. The existence of several villages that connect Nigeria and Niger and Benin also suggests that the smuggling going across these countries may be more than meets the eye or that the authorities in the three countries can easily manage with their anti-smuggling personnel.
It is, therefore, short-sighted to see smuggling into Nigeria from Niger and Benin Republics as only an economic problem. It is a problem that is sociological, cultural, emotional, and even psychological. It is a replaying of an ancient trade relations that they cannot believe to be inimical to colonial and postcolonial boundaries. What the current closure by itself can achieve is only a temporary solution to smuggling. This makes the need for a holistic approach mandatory on both sides of the borders. Earlier in the year, the federal government directed that citizens from Nigeria’s neighbours (that include Benin and Niger) be registered online to enable them to remain in Nigeria as duly documented immigrants, regardless of how they got into the country. The reasons for such easy movement of persons into Nigeria also apply to movement of goods.
Although movement of persons may be easier than movement of goods, unplanned immigration may be seen as increasing the country’s ‘raw labour supply’ but it may also aggravate Nigeria’s unemployment rate, particularly at a time that Nigeria is already being cited as about ready to become the fourth largest country on the globe. Illegal movement of goods, especially goods from a third country, like rice, sugar, wine, and hard liquor into Nigeria can degrade or damage Nigeria’s economy, especially now that the country is working on espousing a productive economic model to complement its rentier one. Closing the borders indefinitely, if this were possible, may not bring smuggling among Nigeria, Niger, Benin, Chad, and Cameroon to an end.
One thing that is good about the closure of land borders, apart from the announcement that the price of domestic rice has been spiking since the closure, is that the government is also assuring citizens that the closure is not the best permanent arrangement for countries tied together not just by geography but also by centuries of consanguinity and way of life. Just as Olusola Igue, a Beninois scholar of cross-border trade in Africa, had observed, smuggling has persisted in the region because it reflects ancient trade patterns starkly in collusion with modern boundaries. It may be over optimistic or foolhardy for any government in the ECOWAS region—from Senegal to Nigeria—to expect that border closure will solve the problem of smuggling within the region. Even after several days of closure, the Nigerian Customs has announced that over 3,000 bags of imported rice had entered Nigeria through bush paths on bicycles or motorised cycles through villages in Niger and Benin republics.
Similarly, the conclusion of Alan Deardorff and Wolfgang Stopler in “Effects of Smuggling under African Conditions: A Factual, Institutional and Analytic Discussion,” that for as long as Africa’s geography conflicts with its politics, “free trade would solve most of existing boundaries currently engaged in inward-looking policies necessitated by ‘nation-building’ on the basis of existing boundaries,” is worth the attention of political leaders and policy wonks of all the countries in West Africa.
Nigeria has many comparative advantages. And it has shown some of it by unilaterally closing borders between it and its smaller neighbours and seems to have sent some significant signal through this measure. But it will be wrong to assume that the problem of smuggling from Nigeria’s brothers and sisters across the borders will go away because of border closure. Nigeria has more comparative advantages that it can deploy to deal with an ancient problem that it and other members of ECOWAS has inherited and aggravated.
The conclusion to the paper by Alan Deardorff and Wolfgang Stopler in the article referenced above is worth restating for the benefit of post-closure policies: “Smuggling in African circumstances is an unequivocal blessing for the economies, the people, and ultimately perhaps even the governments. It is a healthy reaction to bad situations caused by bad policies. It is healthy in the sense in which a high fever is healthy for a person with an infection. Of course, a healthy body and no fever would be even better.”
To be continued
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