President Muhammadu Buhari has explained that Nigeria’s border with the Benin Republic was partially closed because of the massive smuggling activities, especially of rice, taking place on that corridor.
He stated this position during an audience granted his Beninois counterpart, Patrice Talon, on the margins of the Seventh Tokyo International Conference for African Development (TICAD7), in Yokohama, Japan on Wednesday.
According to a statement issued by Femi Adesina, Special Adviser to the President (Media & Publicity),
President Buhari, who expressed great concern over the smuggling of rice, said it threatened the self-sufficiency already attained due to his administration’s agricultural policies.
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“Now that our people in the rural areas are going back to their farms, and the country has saved huge sums of money which would otherwise have been expended on importing rice using our scarce foreign reserves, we cannot allow smuggling of the product at such alarming proportions to continue,” the statement quoted him as saying.
President Buhari said the limited closure of the country’s western border was to allow Nigeria’s security forces develop a strategy on how to stem the dangerous trend and its wider ramifications.
Responding to the concerns raised by President Talon on the magnitude of suffering caused by the closure, President Buhari said he had taken note and would reconsider reopening in the not too distant future.
He, however, disclosed that a meeting with his counterparts from Benin and Niger Republics would soon be called to determine strict and comprehensive measures to curtail the level of smuggling across their borders.
Earlier, President Talon had said he called on the Nigerian President as a result of the severe impact the closure of the Nigerian border was having on his people.
The statement said President Buhari also received in audience, President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa during which issues of common bilateral relations especially, the killings of Nigerians in South Africa, were discussed.
It said the matter will be further examined during Buhari’s official visit to Pretoria in October.
Meanwhile, President Ramaphosa has said that his government was very sad about the protracted killings of Nigerians in South Africa.
Answering questions from journalists after the meeting with President Buhari, he noted that the sad occurrences have necessitated a meeting of the leaders of both countries to explore how to deal with the situation.
While pointing out that he was not in support of the killings, the South African president affirmed that his country’s justice system had already taken up the matter.
He said: “We are going to be discussing all that because we have very good relations. We ‘ll talk about the issue of Nigerians who are dying in South Africa. We feel very upset about that.
“Obviously, our criminal justice system is working on it. We don’t support killings. Nobody should ever be killed, but it’s also good to use this opportunity here in Japan to renew the bond between us, to talk about common things between South Africa and Nigeria.
“We know we have to play key roles in the overall development of the continent.”
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