By Uzor Odigbo
Association of Registered Freight Forwarders, Nigeria (AREFFN) has described the partial border closure embarked by government as one not capable of solving challenges of smuggling in the country.
AREFFN said local rice production has not been able to meet citizens demand for the staple food, accused accused border community dwellers as being behind rice smuggling.
In a press statement jointly signed by Ejike Metu and Innocent Elum,
the Board of Trustee’s Chairman and Secretary respectively, the association called for a reversal of the ban on vehicle importation through land borders with particular reference to Seme Border in Lagos.
The statement read: “We believe that closing the border just for some days is no silver bullet and cannot achieve any meaningful result. Indeed, the action begs the question of why the grains have continued to find their way into the country illegally despite measures by government to contain the trend. We think that government should do a more thorough thinking to ascertain the fundamental causative factors and provide lasting solution.
“The quantity produced locally at present is hardly sufficient to complement the imports and satisfy the demand of over 120 million Nigerians. Not even with the smuggled ones! This explains its exorbitant price of between N17,000 and N18,000 before the border closure, and currently between N19,000 and N20,000, apparently beyond the reach of the poor. Instructively, the local ones appear nonexistent in the market and even if you are lucky to find it, it is almost the same price as the foreign one.
“We recommend that government adopts a gradual approach in implementing the rice policy to avoid creating more problems than it seeks to solve.
“Our investigation has revealed that a good number of the rice smugglers are inhabitants of the border communities who hitherto engaged in legitimate clearing of used vehicles, with many of them graduates of many years standing but with no jobs. We recommend that government should revisit and reconsider the policy.
“It is common knowledge that the nation’s land borders, from North through South, are very porous, with over 1,400 illegal and ineffectively manned routes and waterways. Very often Customs Officials and the smugglers clash on these routes, sometimes with casualties on one or both sides. This is usually reported by the media.
“It requires no deep imagination, therefore, to understand that the smugglers carry out their illegal activities through the unapproved routes and certainly not the official border that plays host to heavy and ubiquitous security presence. Importers and other legitimate transborder traders are those you find here processing their documentations with Customs, Immigration, etc.
“We recommend that government draft more security personnel to man the unapproved routes, but should also bear in mind that smuggling is a global phenomenon that can be checkmated but perhaps impossible to do away with totally all at once.
”Finally, we recommend that government should in future engage Freight Forwarders or non-government actors operating at the Seme border for information, advice and proper guidance before taking certain actions to avoid mistakes.”
