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Kayode Oyero
The President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), says the recent reopening of the land borders will boost the fortunes of business owners in the country.
Buhari, who stated this in his 2021 New Year Broadcast on Friday, informed West African neighbours like Ghana, Togo, Benin Republic, amongst others that Nigeria is now “fully open” for business in the Year 2021.
He said, “With the recent opening of our borders, we expect that the pent-up demand of legitimate cross-border and international trade will boost the fortunes of the many small businesses and agricultural enterprises that depend on Nigeria’s trade and commerce.
The National Association of Nigerian Traders (NANTS) has urged the Nigerian Government to inaugurate a committee to look into the seizure of legitimate goods and containers by Customs during the border closure.
This was disclosed by NANTS President, Dr Ken Ukaoha, in an interview on Tuesday in Abuja. Ukaoha warned that most of the seized goods could have expired by now as over 70% of the seized goods were agro products, especially those that were bound for export.
NANTS said Nigerian traders had legitimate goods valued at billions with expiry dates seized alongside smuggled goods when Nigeria shut its land borders in August 2019.
What the President is saying
The President said he had ordered the Central Bank not to
“give money to import food.”
“Already, about seven states are producing all the rice we need. We must eat what we produce.
Going back to the land is the way out. We depend on petrol at the expense of agriculture. Now the oil industry is in turmoil.
We are being squeezed to produce at 1.5 million barrels a day as against a capacity to produce 2.3 million.
At the same time, the technical cost of our production per barrel is high, compared to the Middle East production.”
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As Nigeria reopens four of its land borders to economic activities, a Professor of Virology, Oyewale Tomori, has called for vigilance on the part of the authorities to forestall fresh imported Covid infections, especially as the country battles the second wave of the pandemic.
Tomori, who is the Chairman, Expert Review Committee on COVID-19, spoke on a PUNCH Online interview programme,
The Roundtable.
He said the government is not prepared for the fresh cases of the virus that would be imported into the country as economic activities resume along the borders, adding that Nigeria’s overburdened health facilities don’t have the capacity for more COVID-19-infected persons.
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