Contrary to reports that were making the rounds on Sunday
that President Muhammadu Buhari had approved the extension of the closure of
Nigeria’s borders to January 31, 2020, the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has
made clarifications.
According to the NCS Public Relations Officer, Joseph Attah,
the date approved by the President was only the date for the end of the first
phase of the operation, not the terminal date for the entire border closure.
Attah made known that this type of operations come in phases
and so January 31, 2020, is just the conclusion of a phase. He said that the
borders would remain closed indefinitely until the objectives of the government
for the operation had been fully achieved.
However, he said that security officers on the field would
be notified of further development about the second phase of the border closure
before January.
Meanwhile, Hameed Ali, Comptroller General, NCS, had earlier
restated stance on border closure, saying that it would remain closed until
Nigeria’s neighbours decided to respect ECOWAS protocol concerning trade within
the subregion.
He told Nigerians to endure the temporary pains of the
border closure as it would be only for a short while. Ali was quoted to have
said that Nigerians should keep calm because the situation would stabilise
eventually. According to him, there was no better time than now to make the
border closure, adding that infrastructure doesn’t have to be perfect before
such move is made.
“There will never be a good time. The decision of closing
the border is ripe, we don’t need to have 100 per cent electricity, good roads
before we take the step. Most
importantly is that we must be able to bear the initial pains in order to
stabilise and have long term successes.
“We don’t have to eat
rice every day. There are other alternative food. I assure you that the price
will stabilise and the ordinary farmers will have value for their farming
business,” the Customs boss said.
