Border closure necessary to enforce anti-smuggling laws —Emir Sanusi

The Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, has described the
decision of the Federal Government to close the land borders with
the neighbouring countries, as necessary in order to enforce 
Nigeria’s anti-smuggling laws.

Sanusi said this in Kano on Wednesday,
reports Daily
Trust^[1].

He said, “If you remember when the president came to Kano on an
official visit, I actually talk about closing the borders with the
Republic of Benin. I always felt that if you really want to enforce
laws that you have against smuggling, you need to close
borders.

“You have petroleum products moving basically across the borders
from Nigeria to neighbouring countries because of our fuel
subsidies.  You have goods coming in across the border using
the port in Cotonou to avoid tax revenues in Lagos; so what happens
is we don’t get the revenue from duties and tariffs and then we end
up having the goods coming in anyway.

“Closing the borders becomes indispensable because our
neighbouring countries are not helping us to protect our
economy.

“For instance, if you want to protect rice farmers, you have to
impose heavy taxation on importation of foreign rice into the
country.

“Therefore, any country that allows smuggling of rice into
Nigeria through its borders is doing that at the expense of our
farmers who could not withstand competition with foreign
producers.

“Besides rice and other food items, you must also understand
that all the illicit drugs get into this country through the land
borders.

“So sometimes it is important to take these difficult decisions
so that we get the cooperation and collaboration of Customs
officials across the borders.”

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