Citing the menace of organised smuggling to the revival of its domestic rice programme, Nigeria is about to shut its land borders with its West African neighbours. Not surprisingly, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Audu Ogbeh, declared that the imminent closure was aimed at protecting the production of rice by local farmers. Nigeria has witnessed a mini-revolution in domestic rice production in the past two years, but the revival faces a massive threat from cross-border smuggling.
In truth, this rare success story is under a heavy attack by the countries that surround Nigeria. Although this country’s imports are down because of several measures put in place, its neighbours’ rice imports have tripled. Benin Republic, which used to import 400,000 metric tonnes annually, has seen its rice imports climb to 1.2 million MT. Other countries like Cameroon and Niger also flood their coasts with rice from Thailand.
These countries are manipulating the West African Free Trade Protocol, which allows ECOWAS countries to move goods and services at preferential tariff rates. With our porous borders, weak immigration and compromised customs control, most of the rice from Asia ends up in Nigeria through the back door. This kills the local efforts to sustain production.
Besides, the country loses revenue because duties are not paid on smuggled goods. Therefore, the Muhammadu Buhari administration is right to clamp the land borders shut, even if temporarily, to protect Nigeria’s interest. It is an extreme diplomatic move, but it sends a clear message to our neighbours. However, it is not the first time. At the height of cross-border banditry in 2003, the then Olusegun Obasanjo administration shut the border with Benin Republic. The closure had an instant impact: cross border crime reduced and has not attained that scary level since the border was reopened.
Indeed, rice is regarded as a staple in Nigeria. In spite of this, the country abandoned rice farming, perhaps because it was flush with cheap petrodollars. Profligately, it depended heavily for decades on imported rice to feed its population. Nigeria imported rice in 2015 at $1.65bn, the Federal Government said. This is not sustainable. From Thailand alone, Nigeria imported 664,131 metric tonnes of rice in the one year to September 2016. In 2008, the government had unwisely released N80bn from the Natural Resources Development Fund to import 500,000MT of rice. This money, ploughed into a domestic cultivation programme, would have transformed rice farming in Nigeria.
With economic recession underlined by high cost of foreign exchange to procure imports, the government, through the Central Bank of Nigeria, launched the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme, which channelled N100bn soft loans to rice farmers. In 2015, the CBN included rice among the 43 prohibited items not eligible for foreign exchange at a concessionary rate. A 60 per cent import duty was also placed on the item.
These sweeping measures revived domestic production. By September 2017, rice import from Thailand had declined sharply by 90 per cent to 20,000MT. From five million rice farmers in 2015, the number climbed to 11 million in 2017, the Rice Processors Association of Nigeria stated. Production has climbed to seven million MT from four million MT.
Apart from cross-border smuggling, salient questions, however, remain in the drive to be self-dependent and ban rice import completely by 2020. The Nigeria Customs Service, as currently constituted, lacks the mettle to contain the activities of smugglers. The borders – which cannot even be closed indefinitely – are also porous. Thirdly, the government is too weak and distracted to prosecute effectively smugglers.
As cars, prohibited items like processed food and frozen poultry are being smuggled heavily into Nigeria. Customs headed by Hameed Ali, have looked helpless as refined petroleum products, which Nigeria imports at a damaging cost to its economy, are smuggled across the border. In addition, arms and ammunition flow into Nigeria through this negligence. The United Nations has said that 350 million out of the 500 million small and light weapons circulating in West Africa are in Nigeria. The NCS is only able to seize a fraction, as it did in 2017 on three separate occasions. This fuels banditry, kidnapping, armed robbery, Fulani herdsmen massacres and the Boko Haram insurgency. Zamfara State is under siege from local and trans-border bandits.
Insecurity is exacerbated by the laxity of the dysfunctional Nigeria Immigration Service. The government approved only 84 official border points of entry into Nigeria. Puzzlingly, there were 1,499 illegal border routes as of 2013, the then Minister of Interior, Abba Moro, said. Criminals and insurgents, therefore, easily infiltrate the country, causing mayhem. Therefore, closing the land borders alone is not an integrated solution to the menace of rice smuggling.
In simple terms, the Federal Government needs radical initiatives to save the situation. This is what India and Pakistan do at their joint borders, which is about 3,300 kilometres long. Out of this, nearly 2,000 kilometres is floodlit. Troops from both sides patrol their side of the borders with intense scrutiny owing to fears of Islamist terrorism. Unlike Nigeria, these governments give no excuse to their citizens.
For that reason, the closure of the land borders should be accompanied by an overhaul of the Customs, in which officers have to work with high-end technology. The current system of chasing smugglers in the hinterland is inescapably obsolete. Detection ought to occur at the borders; those caught should be prosecuted swiftly. Government should set a target for the NCS to drastically reduce smuggling.
To protect the 100,000 miles of the American coastline, the US Coast Guard employs over 56,000 officers to operate a multi-mission, interoperable fleet of 243 Cutters, 201 fixed and rotary-wing aircraft, and over 1,600 boats. Immediately, the NIS has to be restructured for efficient service delivery. Its capacity should be enhanced, with air surveillance established to monitor remote illegal border crossings.
