ZCZC
BCN-07
NIGERIA-BENIN-TRADE-TRAVEL,FOCUS
Nigeria and Benin make a new break for the border
BADAGRY, Nigeria, Oct 28, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Nigeria’s southwestern border
with Benin is notoriously chaotic. Travellers and traders battle corrupt
officials, hawkers and buzzing moto-taxis just to get to the other side.
But a new crossing point has sprung up near the well-worn dirt tracks and
roadside markets that the West African bloc ECOWAS hopes will make the
movement of people and trade a lot easier.
President Muhammadu Buhari flew in by helicopter to cut the ribbon at the
Seme-Krake Joint Border Post this week with his Beninese counterpart Patrice
Talon.
The well-guarded 17-hectare (42-acre) site conforms to international
standards and has been built for an estimated 18.3 million euros ($21
million).
State-of-the-art scanners to detect illicit goods and a weighbridge have
been installed.
Customs, immigration and other officials will no longer have to work out
of makeshift offices in battered shipping containers and huts.
The president of the ECOWAS Commission, Jean-Claude Kassi-Brou, said as
well as boosting trade and helping travellers, the border post will help cut
smuggling, fraud and corruption.
– Plugging gaps? –
The European Union is providing ECOWAS with nearly 64 million euros to
create seven similar facilities from Nigeria to Ivory Coast, between Ghana
and Burkina Faso, and Guinea and Mali.
Ketil Karlsen, the EU ambassador to Nigeria and ECOWAS, told AFP: “A
better flow of people, goods and services… translates into job creation,
opportunities and development possibilities.”
MORE/HR/0932
ZCZC
BCN-08
NIGERIA-BENIN-TRADE-TRAVEL 2 BADAGRY, Nigeria
On the face of it, developing economies through more formalised trade
seems common sense, particularly at Seme-Krake, which is one of Africa’s
busiest border crossings.
Some 70 percent of regional trade is estimated to be conducted in the
corridor stretching 900 kilometres (550 miles) along the Atlantic coast from
Lagos to Abidjan.
Economic growth is also needed in Nigeria, where about 87 million of its
more than 190 million people are classed as living in extreme poverty, and in
low-income Benin.
Nonso Obikili, a Nigerian economist, said the new border post could spur
the creation of others if it shows that trade across a land border can be as
smooth and efficient as via seaports.
ECOWAS and the EU both say Seme-Krake is a starting point, as questions
are asked whether such a facility is really needed and will even be used.
People from the 15 ECOWAS countries already have the right to free
movement and residency in other member states. Not everyone uses formal
crossings.
A 2011 study by the National Institute of Statistics (INSAE) in Benin
recorded some 171 border crossing points with Nigeria and its other
neighbours Burkina Faso and Niger.
Trade-wise, it’s a similar picture, with used cars and fuel, food and
agricultural products smuggled through the bush to get round import bans and
high tariffs in protectionist Nigeria.
Motorcycles carrying sacks of banned foreign rice and cars with
suspiciously high rear suspensions are commonplace on Nigerian roads near the
border.
“In term of smuggling, I don’t think it will make a difference,” said
Obikili. “Smugglers don’t really use the Seme border anyway, as it has always
been heavily policed.”
– Road to hell –
Nigeria’s government has been increasingly publicising work on much-needed
road, rail and airport infrastructure projects as elections approach early
next year.
MORE/HR/0934
ZCZC
BCN-09
NIGERIA-BENIN-TRADE-TRAVEL 3 LAST BADAGRY, Nigeria
The notorious road between the border and Lagos is not one of them and its
current state could even prove counter-productive to the aims of the new
border post, at least in the short term.
It can take the best part of a day to travel the entire 70 kilometres of
the Lagos-Badagry Expressway, which has been called “an international
disgrace”.
Cars, trucks and motorcycles move at a snail’s pace through a moonscape of
giant mud-filled potholes, fly-tipped rubbish and abandoned construction
debris.
Foreign minister Geoffrey Onyeama, who travelled by car to Tuesday’s
opening, told local media the state of the road was “totally unacceptable”.
“You cannot be talking about the free movement of people and goods without
the prerequisite infrastructure to facilitate it,” he was quoted as saying.
Perhaps not coincidentally, ministers on Wednesday approved a budget
request for 63 billion naira ($173 million, 153 million euros) for upgrades
on the road.
But funding is no guarantee in Nigeria, where corruption regularly
prolongs infrastructure projects and schemes started by one politician are
often abandoned by their successors.
Cheta Nwanze, head of research at Lagos advisory firm SBM Intelligence,
said trade would only increase “if Nigeria got it right”.
For that, he argued, the government “needs to just create the enabling
environment” for the private sector, then “get out of the way”.
BSS/AFP/HR/0935