About N1.45 trillion worth of goods are smuggled into Nigeria annually through the country’s borders with Benin Republic. This is according to a recent World Bank report on smuggling. The report is worrisome, distressing and calls for very drastic measures to curb the incidence of smuggling of contraband and other goods through the Benin Republic borders into Nigeria.
Worse is that smuggling of contraband items into Nigeria has become a deep business and one of the biggest issues and major challenges facing the Nigerian economy and its manufacturing sector.
This is not the first time that Benin Republic will be openly sabotaging Nigeria’s economy. It has done it repeatedly for several years
Unless the Federal Government takes very severe actions against Benin Republic, it will be difficult for Nigeria’s economy and particularly its manufacturing sector to be successful.
Concerned about the development, President, Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, recently advised the Federal Government to take any action that will stop the Benin Republic from encouraging people to dump goods such as textiles, sugar, pasta, vegetable oil, arms and ammunition, among others, into Nigeria. He said smuggling has really gone out of control and the Federal Government must do something drastic about it.
This is not the first time that Benin Republic will be openly sabotaging Nigeria’s economy. It has done it repeatedly for several years. Only recently, the federal Government decided to deal decisively with that country for sabotaging Nigeria’s economy by actively promoting some nefarious elements, who were bent on smuggling rice into Nigeria, thus thwarting Nigeria’s efforts to achieve self sufficiency in rice production.
Nigeria must learn a lesson from what President Donald Trump of the United States is doing to close the trade deficit between the U.S and many other countries. The Federal Government must note that it has become a matter of national security for it to protect the Nigerian economy from the nefarious activities of smugglers using the porous Nigerian borders with Benin Republic to smuggle contraband goods into Nigeria.
In addition, it has become a matter of national security for the Federal Government to ensure that petroleum products imported into Nigeria at a huge cost to this nation, or refined in Nigeria, are no longer smuggled out of the country to other neighbouring countries. Security agents must also enforce the regulation that forbids people living within 10 kilometres of Nigeria’s border with any other country from setting up petrol stations within the area.
Smuggling is crippling Nigeria’s economy and disallowing companies in the country from creating job opportunities for millions of job seekers in the country. This is because goods smuggled into the country are killing industries in Nigeria and making made in Nigeria products uncompetitive with their imported counterparts.
Rather than creating jobs, smuggling is allowing Nigerian companies to create more poverty in the economy, because many of the companies in the country are being forced to close down and, in the process, sacking their workers and creating poverty and joblessness in the economy, following their inability to compete with the mostly inferior goods that are smuggled into the
country.
Worse still is that the loss of billions of Naira in Customs duty that should have accrued to the Federal Government if the goods were properly imported and not smuggled into the country. Recall that smuggling of inferior textile products into the country largely accounted for the closure of most textile and vegetable oil factories in the country. Therefore, both the government and the various textiles, sugar, pasta, vegetable oil and many other manufacturing companies in the country have reasons to worry about the crippling influence, which smuggling is having on the economy and on their businesses.
Consequently, apart from stopping Benin Republic from promoting smuggling into Nigeria, the Federal Government must also stop those who are patronizing goods that are smuggled into the Nigerian market. Towards this end, the government must carry out serious public enlightenment on the damages, which smuggling has done to the Nigerian economy. Also, Customs men and other security agencies must work together to stop people from selling smuggled goods.
It is a good thing that it has taken an industry giant like Dangote to call government’s attention to the damages that smuggling of contraband goods are doing to the Nigerian economy. Going forward, apart from taking immediate action to stop smuggling in any form into this country, the government must also copy good models of countries that are policing their borders against smuggling.
Never again must the government allow any of the neighbouring countries to take advantage of Nigeria, such that they will thwart policies meant to sustain this country’s
economy.
