Nigerian Government Pledges To Reopen Seme Border For Importation Of Vehicles, Other Goods

The Nigerian government has approved the reopening of the Seme border to allow importation of vehicles and other goods from neighbouring West African countries.

This was stated by Director of Road Transport in the Ministry of Transportation, Ibrahim Musa, on Wednesday at the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, meeting, organised between officials of Nigeria and Benin, Musa said the development followed complaints by freight forwarders operating at the Seme border.

“The former minister made us to prepare a memo to that effect. It was considered and sent to the government.”

Also speaking, the Customs Area Controller of Seme Border Command, Dera Nnadi said the service has noticed a reduction in its revenue since the importation of vehicles was banned from the land borders.

Nnadi said: “The former Minister of Transportation, responding to some of our requests and from the stakeholders, promised to take them to the Federal Executive Council, FEC, one of them is how to fully open this border.

“The Ministry has informed us that the memo has been written to FEC and it was adopted and that it would be given to the new government, he assured us that all the requests were adopted.”

Meanwhile, the Nigerian Customs Service, NCS Seme Area Command had lamented the huge impact of prolonged border closure on revenue generation at the Seme border.

Comptroller Dera Nnadi, Customs Area Controller Seme Command, mentioned the figures during a media briefing on the Command’s First Quarter, Q1 performance and the handing over of fake $6 million to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, as well as the handing over of other seized items to partner government agencies at Seme, Badagry.

He said: “The major source of revenue of the Command (import/export) has not been enhanced since the opening of the land Borders as directed by the Federal Government of Nigeria as the traders are still bracing with the challenges of having been out of business for over two years.”