My dear Nigerians, there is nothing wrong with trading with our neighbours. But when goods enter our markets through the back door, evade lawful duties and undermine those doing business honestly, we must stop pretending that everything is normal.
A few days ago, I left Cairo, Egypt, after attending a crucial meeting with some officials of Afreximbank.Our journey was supposed to be smooth, but a few hours after take-off, the pilot announced that our aircraft had developed a technical fault and that we needed to make an emergency landing in Benin Republic.
I told the pilot that landing in Benin Republic would give me the opportunity to see a few friends there and then continue my journey to Nigeria by road.
Allah has a way of making us see things. Little did I know that there were lessons waiting for me about our relationship with our neighbouring countries.
At the border, I saw hundreds of fully loaded trailers lined up to enter Nigeria.
I had to ask my host, a senior customs officer in Cotonou, “What exactly are these trailers carrying?”
He told me that most of them were carrying foreign rice, used clothes, assorted cars and frozen food heading to Nigeria.
According to him, things were getting better because the head of the Nigeria Customs Service,Comptroller-General Bashir Adewale Adeniyi was a no-nonsense man.
He solved many problems encountered before he assumed office with latest technology.
He said that before 2023, you would hardly see those trailers openly lining up at the official border crossing. They usually passed through bush routes under organised smuggling arrangements involving some customs officials and criminals.
He also told me that the head of the Nigeria Customs Service had recently removed the comptroller at the Seme border over alleged illegal activities. My host said he had taken similar action on his own side.
These were the things he told me, and they left me thinking.
According to a World Bank analysis, Benin was the world’s sixth-largest rice importer in 2022, despite having a population of about 11 million at the time. The analysis linked the rising imports to substantial onward trade into Nigeria.
My people, does that not tell us something?
The matter goes beyond rice. World Bank research also identifies Cotonou as an important market for used vehicles, second-hand clothing and rice meant for re-export. Nigeria’s huge market is a major reason for that business.
But let us be fair. Not every trader bringing goods through Benin Republic is a smuggler. There is nothing wrong with moving goods through a neighbouring country, provided the trader obeys the laws, makes the required declarations and pays the lawful charges at the final destination.
If Alhaji Dairu Manga are paying all his import duties at the northern borders and Mr IB Dende puts the country’s interests first in the South-West, while another person simply finds a bush path and brings in the same goods without paying.
Then the man doing honest business becomes the foolish one.
How do you expect him to survive? How do you ask a farmer to put his money into production when smuggled goods will arrive tomorrow and destroy his market? How do you encourage a manufacturer who is already struggling with the cost of running his business?
And before we start pointing every finger at Benin Republic, let us ask ourselves some uncomfortable questions.
Who finances these goods? Who receives them in Nigeria? Who falsifies the documents? Who collects money and looks the other way?
Customs officers are not spirits.
Are they not human beings? Do some of them not live among us?
We cannot be shouting about economic sabotage in public and collecting our own share in private. Patriotism must reach our pockets. Otherwise, all this noise about loving Nigeria is empty talk.
There is also confusion about ECOWAS trade rules. Preferential treatment under the ECOWAS Trade Liberalisation Scheme depends on goods meeting the applicable rules of origin.
Foreign goods do not become West African goods simply because a ship drops them at a West African port.
A bag of Asian rice does not become Beninese rice because somebody moves it into a warehouse in Cotonou.
The ECOWAS Revised Treaty distinguishes between re-exported goods and goods in transit. Article 45 provides for freedom of transit under customs supervision, while allowing relevant service charges and recognising the destination country’s authority to regulate the entry of goods imported from outside the region.
In ordinary language, cooperation with our neighbours does not mean abandoning our customs responsibilities. There must still be rules, and those rules must mean something.
But this discussion must not end at Seme.
Whatever standard we demand at Seme and Idiroko must also apply at Illela, Jibiya and Maigatari on the Niger frontier. The same seriousness must apply along our borders with Chad and Cameroon, including at Banki in Borno State.
Benin, Niger, Chad and Cameroon are our four land neighbours. We cannot secure one side and leave another side open, then claim that we have protected the country.
A truck that evades lawful controls in the North deserves the same treatment as a truck doing the same thing in the South.
Nobody should be able to pick up a telephone, call one powerful person and turn a border crossing into his private loading bay. Ethnic connections, political friendships and big names must not determine whose goods are checked.
The law should be the law everywhere.
At the same time, our officials must use common sense. A farmer carrying lawful produce should not suffer because we are fighting smuggling. A small trader with proper documents should not spend days begging to cross the border. A manufacturer bringing in approved materials should be able to do his business without unnecessary frustration.
Make honest business easier and make smuggling harder.
Simplify the paperwork. Reduce unnecessary delays. Track the consignments. And when an official is caught collecting money to betray his duty, let him face the consequences.
Government must also examine the policies that make smuggling so profitable. World Bank research has identified high trade barriers and price differences as incentives for smuggling between Nigeria and its neighbours.
If the policies themselves are creating opportunities for evasion, we should have the courage to examine them.
And please, not everybody who questions a border policy is an enemy of Nigeria.
People have the right to ask whether a policy is helping local production, increasing food prices or destroying lawful businesses. Government should answer those questions with evidence and results.
Nigeria needs its neighbours, and our neighbours need Nigeria. We should be able to trade, cooperate and live peacefully while respecting one another’s laws.
Let the honest trader move. Let the dishonest trader face the law. And let the official collecting bribes face the law too.
Our borders belong to the Nigerian people. They must not become a source of private wealth for a few people while the rest of the country pays the price.
Let us be guided—and share a bottle of understanding among ourselves.
Mogaji Wole Arisekola writes from Ibadan.
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