Director of Road Transport in the Ministry of Transportation, Ibrahim Musa, on Wednesday, June 21, revealed that the Nigerian Government would re-open the Seme border.
Musa said the reopening is to allow freight dealers to be able to import and export vehicles from neighboring countries.
Speaking at the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, meeting, organised between officials of Nigeria and Benin, Musa noted the Govenment decided to re-open the border following complaints by freight forwarders at the Seme border.
Musa, while commenting at the ECOWAS Monitoring Team’s visit to the Seme-Krake Joint Border Post, added that: “I was here with the former Minister of State for Transportation when the Freight Forwarders pleaded that the border should be reactivated for the free movement of goods and services.
“The former minister made us prepare a memo to that effect. It was considered and sent to the government.”
Taking his turn to speak during the meeting, the Customs Area Controller of Seme Border Command, Dera Nnadi maintained that the service has been experiencing serious dip in revenue generation since the Buhari-led Govenment laid an embargo on vehicle importation through 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.”
The City Gazette recalls that immediate past president, Muhammadu Buhari ordered the closure of all the land borders following continuous strike in the northern parts of the country by insurgents said to have gained entrance into Nigeria from different neighbouring countries.
