In 2018, Nigeria exported goods worth $7bn/N2.5trillion to the rest of Africa and imported goods worth $1.3bn/N470billion from the rest of Africa.
Out of this volume of Export, $3.15billion /N1.14trillion were to West African countries. Mainly, to Ivory Coast, Togo and Senegal.
The volume of Nigeria”s imports from West African countries stood at just N80billion.
These are exports and imports done through the formal channels.
We could easily tackle the smugglers and smuggling ring, which are championed mainly by the uniformed rogues that we employed. Uniformed rogues, who are the major cause of our border insecurity. Bunch of irresponsible thugs, who have failed woefully in their assignments but chose to shut down the land borders against honest exporters.
Why should we destroy our $4bn per annum formal and informal West Africa export channel because Benin Republic imported $950m worth of rice from Thailand in one year for onward smuggling to Nigeria. Something we could have easily solved /checkmated by applying the Georgian cleansing model at the Customs and exercise department.?
Source : Trade Law Center (Tralac) South Africa
OBIARAERI, Nnaemeka Onyeka
