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Nigeria border closure infringe on the provisions of ECOWAS TLS_MPs

In spite of the difficult security situation experienced across member’s state of the ECOWAS Region, the Ghanaian government has reaffirmed its commitment in ensuring a secured Ghana. This was contained in the country Report presented by the Ghanaian delegation to the ECOWAS Parliament.

 Contained in a country report presented by Honourable Clement Kofi Humado, the closure of the Nigerian Benin border in September this year is a major issue affecting Ghana’s trade with its neighbours in the sub region, citing that several trucks from Ghana sending goods to Nigeria have been stranded at the Seme-Krake side of the border for over two months now just as Ghana trucks returning from Nigeria with goods cannot also cross the border.

Kofi Humado said while the Nigeria side claims that the border closure was not targeted at Ghana but to control some security issues emanating between them and the Republic of Benin, the Ghana side indicated to their Nigeria colleagues that the border closure had collateral damage on Ghana’s export and imports to and from Nigeria.

“We believe that Nigeria may have good reasons for taking such action but the measures infringe on the provisions of the ECOWAS Trade Liberalization Scheme (ETLS), whatever be the reason, this situation needs to be resolved as quickly as possible” Humado added.

The document also proposed that the present mandate of the Task Force on ETLS be expanded to become an office of Trade Ombudsman, where member countries that wish to undertake measures that will deviate from the provisions of the ETLS must notify this office, believing that this may go a long way to create a more open and transparent mechanism for trade conflict resolution in the ECOWAS sub-region.  

“Issues such as the objective of the measures, how the measures are to be implemented and which parts of the country will be affected by the measures, how the impact of the measures will be monitored and reported, date of commencement of the measures and expected date of termination will be considered by this Office of the Trade Ombudsman and member countries notified accordingly” the document proposed.

Speaking in a medi interview, Honourable Mohammed Shaba Lafiagi of Nigeria Parliament said “Nigeria for a long time has left its border to remain porous, simply because we believe we are the big brother, we cannot continue this big brother thing forever.

“The economy of this country need to be well looked after, import and export are encouraged, but illegal importation certainly cannot work as anybody who goes through this borders will see clearly that the economy of this country is been badly abused, Nigeria cannot continue to remain a big brother and its own economy is been destroyed forever” Lafiagi said.

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