BY JIDE AYOBOLU
It has been said that goods worth N1.45 trillion are smuggled into
Nigeria annually from Benin Republic. This was the revelation from Simon
Tsuwan, a representative of the Acting Managing Director, Nigeria Export
Processing Zones Authority (NEPZA), David Terhemba Nongo, has revealed.
He spoke on the sidelines of a two-day national workshop in Lagos,
recently. The workshop, which sought to examine the role the Maritime
industry in the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA), with
the theme: “AfCFTA: Boosting Nigeria’s Economy for Sustainable
Development,” was organised by the Association of Maritime Journalists
of Nigeria (AMJON). Tsuwan rued the menace of smuggling through the
Benin Republic corridor into Nigeria, saying it has taken a huge
negative economic influence on the nation. To this end, he revealed that
NEPZA was ready to support the Federal Government on border closure.
According to him, a recent World Bank report stated that about N1.45
trillion worth of goods are smuggled into Nigeria annually through the
Benin Republic border with Nigeria alone. He said that the disturbing
situation of smuggling prompted Africa’s foremost industrialist, Aliko
Dangote, to lament that there is no country that can survive with Benin
Republic as a neighbour. The closure, he reiterated, would help to boost
local manufacturing, job creation and economic growth by checking the
smuggling of goods into the country, including helping to increase the
country’s global competitiveness as well as attracting investors.
Smuggling is the illegal transportation of objects, substances,
information or people, such as out of a house or buildings, into a
prison, or across an international border, in violation of applicable
laws or other regulations. There are various motivations to smuggle.
These include the participation in illegal trade, such as in the drug
trade, illegal weapons trade, exotic wildlife trade, illegal immigration
or illegal emigration, tax evasion, providing contraband to a prison
inmate, or the theft of the items being smuggled.
Smuggling has a lot of disadvantages because smuggling isn’t regulated
and outside of the government’s tax net which can lead to a loss of
revenue; Smuggling generates huge profits – most of which goes back to
the crime syndicate to fun more illegal activity. This creates a rise in
crime and can affect tourism, amongst other things; The evasion of tax
and duties on smuggled goods inevitably mean a loss of tax revenue for
the government – which eventually reduces their ability to develop and
progress as a state or country; While legitimate businesses pay a series
of taxes on the goods they produce, smuggling bypasses these taxes which
slowly destroys the local economy; When smuggling overtakes a
functioning economy, it creates instability. This then discourages
business and investments from coming into the area. For these reasons,
and others besides, smuggling is highly illegal and results in fines and
lengthy prison sentences.
It is as a result of the menace of struggling on the Nigerian economy
that President Muhammadu Buhari ordered for the closure of the borders,
this is because, not only is smuggling killing infant and cottage
industries, but unfortunately, the country has become a dumping ground
for all sorts of sub-standard goods, many of which are very toxic and
hazardous to health. Smuggling kills initiatives and aides laziness, as
the generality of the people have become accustomed to things foreign
and expresses disdain for things produced locally. And, the point must
be made that, no country can genuinely grow and develop without
deliberately focusing and developing the local industries and
capacities. Therefore, the closure of the borders is more than any other
meant to make Nigerians use and eat what they produce and not overtly
import-dependent; it will also make the food self-sufficiency, increase
the revenue that accrues to the government, while aiding increase export
profile of the country and at the same time, systematically diversifying
the economic base of the country away from mono-cultural dependency and
neo-colonial influences.
It is imperative to vividly underscore the fact that, smuggling is one
of the world’s oldest professions. When nation-states established
borders and sought to regulate traffic across them, they created markets
for the smuggling of humans as well as goods. Human smuggling involves
illegal immigration and transnational criminal networks of various
degrees of organization. Many smuggled aliens willingly participate.
Others are duped or coerced. All are vulnerable to exploitation, abuse
and violence, making smuggling–and its most pernicious form,
trafficking in humans for sexual and other exploitation–a barrier to
the protection of migrant workers and their families. Alien smuggling is
associated with many other social problems: sweatshops, involuntary
servitude; buying and selling of human beings; fraudulent documents;
corruption; transnational organized crime; and other crime. It is hard
to detect and prosecute. Global communications allow smugglers to
rapidly change routes, countries of transit and of destination, and
schedules. The production of high-quality counterfeit documents is easy.
Besides, human smuggling operations take many different forms. Research
suggests an emerging pattern of increasing professionalization. This
pattern may vary by the type and location of the smuggling. To use
trafficking into the United States from Mexico to illustrate the various
patterns of smuggling, at the most informal levels, aliens are helped by
family and friends to traverse the border. At a slightly more organized
level, local agents may be used to link migrants to more formal
smuggling operations. The local contacts, who are generally well known
to the migrants, tell them who to contact at the border to help them
gain entry into the United States.
Smuggling is not just about the illegitimate transportation of goods or
commodities across borders; at the border there are several types of
services offered, some requiring a very high level of
professionalization as well as networks in the country they are going
to: for example, assistance in crossing without inspection; safe houses;
transportation to interior locations; and links to employers. At
ports-of-entry, some smuggling operations sell or rent documents.
Documents may be forged border crossing cards or visas, but smugglers
also sell real documents that permit an imposter with similar physical
features to fool the inspectors. Once through the inspection line, the
document may be retrieved and used again. For a higher fee, the migrants
may keep the documents to verify eligibility for lawful employment. Some
smugglers act like legitimate business people, guaranteeing these
services and agreeing to receive final payment when the migrant reaches
the final destination. Other smuggling/trafficking operations are far
less benign. Smugglers pack large numbers of migrants into small,
unventilated spaces to cross borders or reach ports. Fearing
apprehension by border authorities, smugglers have left migrants without
water or protection from the hot sun. As smuggling fees increase and
migrants find it difficult to pay all costs at once, smugglers, in
effect, sell migrants to businesses that cover the fees in exchange for
indentured labour. In one of its most troubling forms, trafficking can
amount to virtual slavery, particularly for women and children forced
into sexual exploitation.
Moreover, the joint border security exercise ordered by the government
and aimed at securing Nigeria’s land and maritime borders, are solid
sector policy measures that were recommended by those entrusted with
regulating our monetary and fiscal policies, namely the CBN, the finance
ministry, with obvious input from the ministry of agriculture. The
synergy just had to be put in place in formulating a sustainable policy
to help the nation achieve putting Nigeria and Nigerian produce and
goods, first. That synergy seemingly has berthed, and it is all good.
The customs department has been recording phenomenal increases in
revenues, as most goods smuggled through the land borders have had to be
berthed, diverted to our seaports. Local products and farm produce are
now gradually being accepted as worthy alternatives to more often than
not, inferior imports. Farmers are finally having the sense of belonging
and entitlement to the recognition of their sweats, industry and
commitment.
Furthermore, the successes being recorded in the agricultural sector are
too delicate to be left in the lurch by the continued and renewed
activities of smugglers. Now that there are noticeable interests in
small to medium to large scale investments in the agriculture sector, it
behoves the handlers of the economy to help put in place not only the
enabling environment but also the fiscal and monetary protection needed
to help indigenous businesses grow. The Central Bank has also
intensified upon the need to provide loans and facilities in the
critical sectors of production including Agricultural Credit Guarantee
Scheme Fund, Agricultural Credit Support Scheme, Commercial Agriculture
Credit Scheme, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Fund, are
some of the instruments put in place to stimulate growth,
conscientiously and consciously by the CBN. The implementation and
disbursement of these instruments through the various banks, being
diligently supervised by the CBN. It is therefore important that certain
measures be put in place for the sake of the Nigerian economy hence the
need for the border closures and other Allied matters at these present
times. That farmers are gradually going back to their farms, especially
after the many cases of insecurity, farmers/herders clashes, that have
noticeably and significantly reduced, a drain on the economy itself, the
country must move forward. There is no doubt that efforts such as the
border closures will help to save huge sums of money which would
otherwise have been expended on importing locally produced goods and
rice using our scarce foreign reserves.
The central bank governor, Godwin Emefiele, believes smugglers are
“killing” Nigeria’s economy. Speaking at a roundtable event in
Lagos, he said: “Nigeria is very good at making brilliant economic
policies, but smugglers are those sabotaging these policies”. Thus, he
said, the CBN would “block the smugglers’ accounts in all Nigerian
banks”. Those circumventing the government’s foreign exchange
restrictions on certain imports would also be “blacklisted” and
prevented from operating in the foreign exchange market and the banking
industry. Emefiele said the CBN “has the names of individuals and
companies involved in smuggling”. Which shouldn’t be surprising. In
her book, Reforming the Unreformable, former Finance Minister Dr Ngozi
Okonjo-Iweala wrote that: “Nigeria must be one of the few countries in
the world where smugglers are known and talked about openly, and where
these same big-time smugglers walk around freely in the corridors of
powers”. So, smugglers are ubiquitous in Nigeria.
But thank God that President Buhari is taking the bull by the horns and
has decided to close the borders in the overriding interest of the
country. For instance, a World Bank report states thus: “The total
amount of potential smuggling from Benin is estimated at close to $5bn,
nearly 10% of Nigeria’s official imports”. Recently, the Financial
Times published a story entitled: “Smuggled rice makes mockery of
Nigerian question to boost farming”, in which it said that “more
than one million tonnes of rice entered Nigeria through its porous
border with Benin in the first three months of this year”.
Fact be told, smuggling is one of the serious problems facing the
Nigerian economy which has contributed to its stunted growth. Greed for
wealth, ignorance and lack of patriotism have been identified as major
causes of smuggling. In a report, World Bank had noted that N750 billion
worth of different goods are smuggled into Nigeria through Benin
Republic alone every year, with uncollected taxes and custom duties
which hinder economic growth. It noted that $400 million representing
about 25 per cent of the total current annual revenue collected by the
customs is lost through smuggling across borders. Also, the Nigerian
Textile Manufacturers’ Association, NTMA, reportedly noted that
Nigeria losses $325 million yearly due to evasion of customs duty and
value-added tax by smugglers of textile materials.
It has been said that economic sabotage by citizens is a deliberate act
to flout economic policies of a country which results in undermining,
weakening or destroying the economy. It is one of the worst things to
happen to a country because the economy is the lifeblood of a people. A
booming economy is the delight of citizens while a sabotaged and
depressed economy is a reproach. An undermined economy can hardly grow
and develop optimally which can result in a vicious cycle of poverty,
outbreak of social vices and insecurity which hinders investment and
perpetuates the vicious cycle.