Peter Nnaji is a driver of 18-steater commercial bus, whose business is to shuttle from the popular ‘Seme Park at Mile 2’ to the Seme Border Post on daily basis. From this business, the father of four children with a wife, puts food on his table, pays his bills and takes care of his family responsibilities.
Nnaji, who used to travel to and fro Seme border and Mile 2, for at least twice a day with full load of passengers, now struggles to make once-per-day trip without full load passengers in the last one week, that the Federal Government shut down cargo and passengers entrance and exit through all the nation’s land border posts.
“Business is very slow nowadays. We rarely see passengers due to the recent border closure. And most of our drivers, who ply Lagos-Badagry-Seme axis, no longer patronise the ECOWAS corridor because people are no longer allowed to do both legitimate and illegitimate businesses at the border,” he said.
Nnaji, who said that he used to take home a minimum of N43, 000 everyday, said that he presently manages to take home N10,000 after the day’s work due to lull in business activities around the border.
BDSUNDAY investigation revealed that one week into the land border closure by the Federal Government over insecurity and growing incidences of smuggling activities, businesses, especially buying and selling, commercial transport business, commercial load/goods carriers called ‘kabukabu’, motorcycle riding popularly called ‘okada’ that depend on land border to thrive, have been atrophied.
Consequently, both youths and families in border communities that earn a living and put food on their table by taking active part in such businesses, are presently idling away due to lack of job and low patronage.
Nigeria shares international land border with Benin Republic, Niger, Chad and Cameroon totaling about 4,745square kilometers of land mass. Within these border areas, communities such as Ilaro, Idiroko, Oke Odan, Ipokia, Owode, Mawun, Alari, Koko, Badagry, Ajilete, Ago, Ighonyedo and Ifo, are located very close to the borders.
Also, places such as Okerete, Banki, Maitagari, Imade Dura and Jibia are among the villages that are close to the land borders.
Majority of people from these villages thrive on either rendering services to both legitimate traders, who pay taxes to government for bringing in imports, or by aiding smugglers that short-change government to bring in consignment without paying taxes to government.
These villagers use their ‘okada’ to carry both imported and smuggled commodities such as rice, chicken and turkey for as much as N3,000 per 50kg of rice to Owode from Idiroko border, and N5,000 to Sango from Idiroko. They also use ‘kabukabu’ to move these consignments in large quantities at night.
With the current border closure, activities of both legitimate and illegitimate traders have been stalled, thereby putting these villagers completely out of business for the past weeks.
When BDSUNDAY visited the markets in Lagos, it was discovered that the prices of some of these food items that come from the neighboring West African countries are fast skyrocketing.
For instance, turkey has become a scare commodity such that available ones now sell for as high as N19, 500 in Sango area. Smuggled frozen chicken is also out of the market, given way for made-in Nigeria chicken to cost between N10,000 and N14,000. The price of rice has also gone up due to scarcity as one 50kg bag of rice now goes for N19,500 to above N20,000.
“We rarely get customers to buy goods from us because people and even goods are no longer allowed to cross the border. People no longer come to the border to do business. There is low patronage for even some of us that are into legitimate business,” decried a shop owner, who gave her name as Iya Biliki.
According to her, before the border closure, she used to make as much as N20,000 every day but today, she rarely make N5,000 from drinks, water, snacks and recharge cards that she sells at the Seme border post.
Iya Biliki, who stated that her worries had remained the fact that nobody knows when government would be through with the so-called joint security exercise ‘Ex Swift Response’, which was slated to last for 28 days, added that she prays business starts booming again to enable her raise money for her children’s fees as schools will soon resume.
“School would soon resume and I have not been able to raise money for the payment of my children’s school fees because business has slowed down. I hope things improve before school resumption in September, which is already around the corner,” she added.
Apart from transporters and traders, road transport workers popularly called ‘agbero’ have also decried massive lull in toll and levy collection from commercial vehicles plying the route like Lagos-Badagry Expressway to Seme or Idiroko borders.
Members of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) that work along the Lagos-Badagry axis are presently counting losses over the border closure.
A member of the NURTW Mile 2 Park, who claimed anonymity, told our correspondent that there has been a massive drop in levy collection on vehicles at all the units along the ECOWAS corridor.
He said that most of the parks along the Lagos – Badagry Expressway, are scanty due to the border closure. He also alluded to the fact that the volume of items, especially food stuffs smuggled or brought from the popular Cotonou market, have dropped to about 100 percent while the number of passengers that do business at the borders, has also reduced drastically.
“Formerly in a day, we used to collect as much as N10,000 from buses plying this route to Seme but for the past one week that the border has been closed, we don’t even make up to N1,000. We collect N200 per bus plying Mile 2 to Seme border but as we speak, we cannot count up to three buses a day because nobody is ready to risk such movement when there is nothing happening at the border,” he added.
He listed transit parks in Agbara, Ijanikin, Alaba- Rago and Mile 2, Iyanu-Oba and others as parks affected by the border closure.
Globally, it is the trend for border communities to rely on trade, economic and commercial activities within and across borders to survive. As the landlords of gateways to the country, these communities also serve as solid economic bases for legitimate economic activities to thrive.
Research has shown that international border markets are located in these communities where the exchange of various goods and services from various countries can be carried out.
When such economic activities thrive, it promotes the collection of various tariffs; reduced smuggling and the people in the area would be gainfully employed. When such a people are engaged they will be less prone to violent activities as well as crimes.
AMAKA ANAGOR-EWUZIE
