Border Closure Leaves Rice-loving Nigerians Steaming

Badagry, Nigeria, Sept 19 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 19th Sep, 2019 ) :The days of heaping 50-kilo sacks of rice across the saddle of their motorbike and slipping a few notes to a customs officer are now gone.

With Nigeria having snapped its borders shut, the legions of motorbike riders who used to satisfy the nation's hunger for imported rice are lucky at best to sneak through a few packets of Basmati.

The smugglers risk more than just jail time if they try force or sneak across the border.

"They shoot us and kill us like goats," said Adewole, who asked for his full name not to be published, stuttering with anger.

The some 3,000 sacks of rice per day that motorbike riders estimate they previously smuggled across the border from Benin have slowed to a trickle.

As a result, the price of rice has skyrocketed, from 9,000 nairas (22 Euros, $24) for a 50-kilo sack, to 22,000 nairas, a price higher than Nigeria's minimum monthly wage of 18,000 nairas.

The border closure is part of President Muhammadu Buhari's plan to end Nigeria's economic dependence on oil, by developing domestic agriculture and industry.

With cheap goods -- smuggled or imported -- long having hampered domestic producers, Buhari ordered a partial closure of the border with Benin in August.

This month, the borders with all neighbouring countries have been shut completely.

"The Nigerian borders will remain closed until the countries sharing borders with Nigeria" accept conditions put in place for the country's economic policies on what is imported, warned Hameed Ali, comptroller general of the Nigeria Customs Service.