The Soil Science Society of Nigeria (SSSN) says Federal Government should monitor the activities of Nigeria Customs Service personnel to ensure its recent policy on partial closure of the country’s borders is sustained.
Prof. Bashir Raji, the President of the society gave the advice in an interview while reacting to the recent partial closure of the border on Wednesday in Abuja.
Raji said that the limited closure was geared toward curbing rice smuggling into the country.
He described the moves as laudable and emphasised that the Republic of Benin was not in tune with “our policy”.
Raji said that the Republic of Benin, for instance knew that Nigeria discouraged the importation of commodities especially, rice but persisted in smuggling it in.
He noted that such act was not healthy for the growth of the nation’s economy.
“It is good to close the border if the people are not cooperating with us, though we have ECOWAS which permits free movement of goods and people.
“But for me, the goods that should have freedom of movement should be those produced locally within the sub-region not the imported ones.
“If President Muhammadu Buhari can sustain this, it will be good for us but they need to check customs to ensure that government policy is actually carried out to the letter.
“The people at the border are making gains hence they are dumping these things or commodities through them to our country.
“Benin Republic needs to be in tune with our own policy if they want us to open up the border,” Raji said.
The president therefore implored the populace to key into the government policy as this would be achieved by ensuring people ate locally produced food.
He noted that such measures would be good for the economy and the populace.
Raji said although the new policy might pose hardship on the masses due to its short term and insufficient production of rice within the country and called for palliatives to cushion the effects.
He also advocated for measures to be adopted in ridding the nation as dumping ground for imported rice among others.
“In this country, apart from rice all the foods we eat are produced locally.
“Unfortunately, the young people below the age of 30 to 40 eat rice and noodles daily.
“Noodles is not imported but most of the time rice is imported.
“We should intensify effort and produce more rice if that is what we consume mostly.
“Government is trying with a lot of incentives from the CBN but we are currently not producing enough for the populace.
“Government is introducing a lot of programmes like the anchor burrower scheme among others which are not enough but should be sustained,” he said.
Federal Government’s partial closure of the border was due to the massive smuggling, especially of rice.
The restriction at Seme followed the joint border security exercise ordered by the government and aimed at securing Nigeria’s land and maritime borders.
The exercise, code-named, ‘Ex-Swift Response’, is being jointly conducted by the customs, immigration, police and military personnel and coordinated by the Office of the National Security Adviser.
President Muhammadu Buhari said the activities of the smugglers threatened the self-sufficiency already attained due to his administration’s agricultural policies.
“Now that our people in the rural areas are going back to their farms and the country has saved huge sums of money which will otherwise have been expended on importing rice using our scarce foreign reserves.
“We cannot allow smuggling of the product at such alarming proportions to continue,” he said.
Buhari said the partial closure of the country’s western border was to allow Nigeria’s security forces to develop a strategy on how to stem the dangerous trend and its wider ramifications
