By Uzor Odikpo
The Executive Secretary and Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC), Hassan Bello, said that the council was working with the Presidency to open inter-state borders.
Recall that the federal government of Nigeria recently locked down inter-state travels to curtail further spread of coronavirus in the country.
Bello told some journalists in an interaction in Lagos that the Council had interfaced with the Presidential Task Force on Covid-19 in the country to open inter-state borders.
He said that ignorance of the nature of shipping business would make people deny cargoes cleared from the port from getting to the destination.
He therefore counselled that interstate lockdown should not prevent movement of cargoes cleared from the port.
Bello was saying this on the standpoint of keeping the economy afloat and to generate revenue for the government despite the rage of covid-19 pandemic.
“Shippers’ Council has interfaced with the Presidential Task Force to open state borders because some states are not bothered about internationality of shipping. “Once the government says the port should open, cargo must find its ways to its destination. You cannot say because you closed your borders cargoes should not move,” he said.
