Ibrahim Musa who is the Director of Road Transport in the Ministry of Transportation has revealed that the Federal Government of Nigeria has approved the re-opening of the Seme border for the importation of vehicles.
Speaking at the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), meeting, organised between officials of Nigeria and Benin, Musa said the development followed complaints by freight forwarders operating at the Seme border.
The director, who spoke at the ECOWAS Monitoring Team’s visit to the Seme-Krake Joint Border Post, said: ‘I was here with the former Minister of State for Transportation when the Freight Forwarders pleaded that the border should be reactivated for the free movement of goods and services.
‘The former minister made us prepare a memo to that effect. It was considered and sent to the government.’
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Also speaking, the Customs Area Controller of Seme Border Command, Dera Nnadi said the service has noticed a reduction in its revenue since the importation of vehicles was banned from the land borders.
Nnadi said: ‘The former Minister of Transportation, responding to some of our requests and from the stakeholders, promised to take them to the Federal Executive Council, FEC, one of them is how to fully open this border.
‘The Ministry has informed us that the memo has been written to FEC and it was adopted and that it would be given to the new government, he assured us that all the requests were adopted.’
Africa Today News, New York recalls that the former President Muhammadu Buhari had closed the borders in 2017.
Just before he left office, he had explained that he closed the country’s land borders to encourage Nigerians to produce food for their consumption.
He said although the move was initially criticised, Nigerians eventually appreciated it.