grandstar:


What is wrong in being the 6th largest or even the largest importer of rice in the world? Nothing if the situation calls for it.

Benin and Niger aren't the biggest losers from this border closure. It is Nigeria.

Nigeria does not have a problem with growing rice. Nigeria can even produce enough rice to feed the whole of Africa. Nigeria does not have a production problem.

However, the country has an economic problem with rice production. Nigeria lacks comparative advantage in rice production. We can't produce it cheaply like Thailand, Vietnam and India, the only 3 countries that have comparative advantage in rice production, the 2nd largest consumed grain in the world. The first is wheat. Nigeria therefore will be a net importer of the stuff.

The only way Nigeria can be self sufficient s by a ban. Assuming the imported stuff is 11,000 and the locally imported one is 17,000, a ban makes the imported one unavailable and people have no option but to purchase the locally produced one for 17,000. The question I want to ask you is how does paying 17,000 for something that was previously 11,000 actually help the average Nigerian? Maybe there may be some poor housewives out there who don't mind paying 17,000 for something that was formerly 11,000 but majority will frown at it!

Countries do best when they focus resources on areas they have comparative advantage. The British tried to encourage local farmers to produce rice but they were disinterested. They preferred cocoa, palm oil, rubber and so forth and that was what the country was re-known for. Palm oil was Nigeria's rice while rice was Thailand's palm oil. Nigerians still call this the golden era.

Do you know Thailand exports $1.8b worth of farmed shrimps yearly? Whay can't Nigeria export $2b worth of farmed snails for instance or $500m worth of grasscutters? It is estimated that sheabutter if well harnessed can bring in as much as $2b yearly as exports.

Imports are not the problem. They are even good for you. America found out that for every 1 cent reduction in import duty, it earned 3 cents in taxes in the wider economy. If import duties are low and trade is booming, does the money not trickle down? Don't you see people making money? High import duty achieves the opposite

People like you are the types we should never have in the first place
Smuggler, economic saboteur.

seguno2:
Are the borders with Niger, Chad and Cameroon also closed

Barawo bubu must be protecting his Fulani rogues as usual in his Fulani Republic of Naijeriya, FRN


[img]https://3.bp..com/-94fjo4Rrwe8/VYYMH1qZ3eI/AAAAAAAAEg4/YQJPLvPXfq0/s400/buhari-military-offensive.jpg[/img]


www.nairaland.com/attachments/2587510_buharibokoharamnegotiator_jpegd42690cb2f2ac90a06f15aac5d233e2c

Hunger will kill only people like u who watch just bbnaija

realstars:
4+4 Buhari's next level of hunger is loading... This time he will make it across the whole west African nations in the next four years, after signing agreement with the neighboring countries. This is just the beginning of the next level things.

Naija sef, our big brother too much. Na dem dey enjoy while our own economy dey suffer.

Malawian:

Fulani herdsmen are preventing Nigerian farmers from Farming and the FG is now preventing alternative source of food. This is akin to the food blockade during the civil war. It is still early days for the effects of this policy to be felt. 180milion Nigerians will eat o. As if we are doing Benin Republic a favour by letting them sell us food we will eat to stay alive.

Typical igbotic reasoning.

onefamily432:
Wat's d essence of ECOWAS no nid jarey in fact d Northernals are d ones who gat nothing to offer for d growth of dis country and yet draw d economy backward. Wen it comes to entertainment north is zero, business infrastructure zero. War- genius. They are good in taking advantages of the safety of the citizens. By d power invested in me I hereby cause all d first born of the northernals like d days of pharaoh. All d caw shall die. If u wit me say Amen.

Drop the hate! The largest farms in Nigeria are owned by Northerners/politicians and they are trying to arm twist the economy to ensure we patronise their farms even when it is obvious the quality and quantity is not sustainable.

We are lucky Dangote or any powerful Northerner is not in the busines of automobile assembly, Nigeria would have banned vehicle imports totally and forced us to use whatever death machine they fabricate.

gunuvi:
I am not against border closure but it will be very evil for Buhari to close the southern borders and not close the northern borders. Meanwhile our government's should be ashamed for the smuggling activities going on at our borders or what are we paying the border securities agencies for?
I tire for this country.

Ignoramus nincompoop, please get educated! Both Northern and Southern borders were closed!! Read the newspapers; the story is there. All states with borders are affected- both South and North.

Hatred for tribe and region that are not yours, will kill some of you soon...

No normal government should support smuggling. Whether Beniniose or Nigerian

grandstar:


Protectionism is killing the country. As The Economist rightly pointed out, protectionism has failed to industrialize the country. It is amateurish and a very blunt tool.

Imports are actually good for you. Protectionism protects zombies and not the competitive and vibrant. It forces locals to pay higher prices for goods than otherwise and it is regressive and it benefits producers (who can make risk free profits) at the disadvantage of the consumer. Dangote's cement was once so expensive that if he sold a bag for half the price, he would still have made a post tax profit! I won't be surprised if Nigerian cement is one of the most expensive in the world.

Nigeria should be focusing on exports. Britain, a country of about 65m people exports about $700b worth of goods and services yearly. That is more than Nigeria's GDP. If Nigeria's non-oil export just increased $30b, the local factories will be working non-stop. The smart money is in exports.

If you try to export, say, one basket of pepper you produced from your farm, you would hate this country called Nigeria after customs is done with you. Nigerians are the problems of Nigeria, not Benin, not Niger republic.

gunuvi:
I am not against border closure but it will be very evil for Buhari to close the southern borders and not close the northern borders. Meanwhile our government's should be ashamed for the smuggling activities going on at our borders or what are we paying the border securities agencies for?
I tire for this country.

Ion think that's true, am currently in the north, border is close here too.

middlebelter:


Perhaps you need to recognise that this is about the best decision this man has ever taken as a civilian president. Now, the FGN has been subsidising petroleum but the unscrupulous businessmen will take such product across the boarder to sell at a more expensive rate for profit why people on East and North can't get products to buy at the controlled price.
You talk about importation of rice our Benin Republic neighbour is about the highest importer of rice in the word , which they dumped on Nigeria without remorse, the implication is that our home grown rice producers can't sell theirs at profit after obtaining loan because there are cheaper rice from Cotonou? Such act is nothing but ECONOMIC WAR!.

Now imagine them saying Buhari want to kill them when indeed their government and people are killing us?.They deliberately refuse to police their boarder to keep us dependent on their rice forgetting that if we are self sufficient, we can supply them cheaper rice and their country supply us home grown products where they have comparative advantage. Economic war is a serious crime and must be confronted.

It is in record that OBJ also closed the boarder, Benin Republic promised to police her boarder but here we are 15years after nothing has been achieved. Buhari should just give them and their Nigerian collaborators Dasuki's treatment. Look at Niger and tell me how helpful has she being in our fight against Boko Haram. Should we continue to deceive ourselves?Go to those African countries and see how much respect they accord Nigeria , perhaps just a little better than South Africa? Do you think if they are the countries with Nigeria Economic advantage, they will do half of what Nigeria is doing for them for us? BUHARI BE WISE DON'T GIVE UP UNTILL YOU EIN THIS BATTLE.

Your head has enough oil, you know wetin we dey talk about unlike these lazy Nigerian yoots posting rubbish since

Where is our border with Niger located, just asking for a friend.

gunuvi:
I am not against border closure but it will be very evil for Buhari to close the southern borders and not close the northern borders. Meanwhile our government's should be ashamed for the smuggling activities going on at our borders or what are we paying the border securities agencies for?
I tire for this country.

sharone21:
Buhari should know clearly that it is not only smugglers that use the borders....there are students and commuters passing through that route even to other could tries like Togo, Ghana etc. Now, if you are to cross the border by the few bike men who can take one across, you pay N5000 instead of N1000. Before now, you can't even bring in a derica of rice without it being seized and some have lost their lives via suicides because of these seizures.....Our custom officers should be held more accountable and these customer officers have been having a jamboree with auction of rice to themselves and the public before now, and fines should be given to those who bring in contraband goods.....some people don't even know the contraband goods, government should publish them and state it clearly unless they mean all goods coming in or leaving Nigeria are all contraband remember, our farmers too in Ogun State that move their produce across to sell. So far, companies like ABC and Cross Country buses etc have been hit with this move.....there should be others ways of achieving the reduction of smuggling at our borders without killing other businesses or stopping commuters and students from moving freely and at affordable prices. Nigeria is still part of ECOWAS, I guess?

Goods will still move albeit more expensive. Nigeria has simply increased the revenue for smugglers and customs officers. Like you said, a bike trip that cost N1000 is now N5000, who does not like extra money?

Jubril Al Sudan only decision I applauded. I am certain he is not originator of the idea.

realstars:
4+4 Buhari's next level of hunger is loading... This time he will make it across the whole west African nations in the next four years, after signing agreement with the neighboring countries. This is just the beginning of the next level things.

I'm not sorry, you are a f**l, your hatred for Buhari has blinded you from seeing the reality

EtovalRealEst:
Don't mind those yeye Benin people,do you know they prefer to buy Cement from China and deliberately band Dangote from selling Cement to them.Despite Nigeria generosity they chose to insult us,worst still they steal our petrol which they export by sea,import parboiled Rice,Turkey,Cars and Cows to sell in Nigeria they should go and sell their rice ,pineapples to France and China.Our roforofo fight just begin...Abeg make I do my morning devotion .

Does Dangote not import his own cement, rebag them in "Dangote" sacks and want to sell to them at higher cost? Why would they buy foreign cement from you at an expensive rate when another country has a trade agreement that offers them cheaper rates?

Wickedtruths:


The border with Niger, is it southern or northern?

You're an idiotic illiterate who is probably a coconut smuggler in Badagry.

.Thank God i neva hit the road, una nor go kee person with laff.Haba! Coconut smuggler, nah wah oo

DTaj:
Ignoramus nincompoop, please get educated! Both Northern and Southern borders were closed!! Read the newspapers; the story is there. All states with borders are affected- both South and North.

Hatred for tribe and region that are not yours, will kill some of you soon...

Are you not the ignoramus nincompoop here since you don’t know that the borders with Niger were only partially closed?

So because we signed an agreement we should put our country under security jeopardy or our local laws shouldn't be respected. I am not a Buhari apologist but rules are made for some reasons.

realstars:
4+4 Buhari's next level of hunger is loading... This time he will make it across the whole west African nations in the next four years, after signing agreement with the neighboring countries. This is just the beginning of the next level things.

mizmia:
Where is our border with Niger located, just asking for a friend.

The borders with Niger were only closed partially.

onefamily432:
Nigerians authority lack business strategy. They should learn from China government. In China the government are the back bone of business economy either original or whatever d government don't disturb. Nigeria government doesn't investment with the country purse rather they just keep stealing from it. Secondly the government lack good business orientated team. For this country to grow make electricity standby. Good road, reduce tax rate. Welcome foreign investors especially cars companies tell them they must bring their assembled company to d country order wise u band their product from entry d country. If they complied u have created an employment for the citizens. They are different way to create job opportunity for the citizens. Let each states has their own resource control, make NDA stationed in every state and make it very easy for citizen to apply. They're a lot of Nigerian youth who wanna give their life for d country but d northernals heads makes it complicated. Open boarders. All this old leaders brain are weak. Mr President my nation citizens are not lazy except u with a lazy brain. God knows wat kinda job your kids do but if their bank account is been check only god knows d billions in there so tell me how come they get all dat? U d corruption Mr president. I hate u from d button of my heart.

Thank you very much! Our politicians only know how to steal, take and steal. They lack the capacity to form economically viable policies in any way.

Ishilove:
These countries need to get creative about solving their own issues. How can they still be so heavily dependent on other countries for survival?

Worst of it is that they know they are heavily dependent on Nigeria but would bad mouth Nigeria at the same, they and their government deliberately waging an economic war against Nigeria and her interest.

That's not true and that's not the question. Please answer this question.

seguno2:


The borders with Niger were only closed partially.

wisewordd:
If we don't have sustainable alternative, I don't see the need for the border closure. Meanwhile, people that closed the border are eaten foreign food, buying expensive foreign clothes, children live abroad, using foreign hospital, and the list goes on. Question, who is deceiving who?

There was no alternative when China started her closed door economy policy decades back

Nice move...the border closure is a step in the right direction and long overdue. In the security perspective, the porosity of the border has given way for smugglers to bring in illegal goods like arms and ammunition’s without going through the proper channel and this is a threat to national security and as well as making the fight against terrorism a hard one. The Lake Chad border area for instance is so porous to the extent that immediately the bandits, Boko haram insurgents carry out attacks they easily cross the border to Lake Chad as an escape route, we have seen cases of foreign fighters/sympathizers enter Nigeria freely in order to support their ‘brothers in arms’.
Economically, the closure of the border will boost home grown products patronage and will encourage local producers as people will patronize made in naija goods. Most of the contrabands smuggled into Nigeria are prohibited in other countries and because of how porous our border is these miscreants capitalize on it and seen Nigeria as a ‘dumping grounds of contrabands’.
In conclusion it’s high time Nigeria demonstrate the ‘giant of Africa’ in action rather than in words by getting it priorities right and it’s National interests by setting standards for territorial influence and dominance. Issue sanctions and let Nigeria be a force to be reckoned with.
Lastly the closure of the border is a necessary evil, but then the rich won’t get affected by the border closure but only the common man will be at the receiving end, the senator in Abuja won’t feel it an inch but mama shukura selling rice in idumota and the common man on the street will be grossly affected because bag of rice is now around 22k if I’m not mistaken. Don’t just close the border mr President, what measures has been put in place that won’t let the border closure affect your citizens? If no measures then this is a slippery slope. Money Monday People.

chinchum:
We wont be the biggest looser due to closure. Nigeria is spending roughly 1 thrillion naira annually to subsidise petroleum products, a lot of that subsidised product goes to the neighbouring countries. As of today the price of 1 lite of fuel has increased to over 300naira in Benin republic.
In less than 2 years, we most likely will achieve self sustainability in refining petrolum products courtesy of of Dangote refinery, we can choose to remove subsidy on imported petroleum product.

The government has also placed a ban on access to foreign exchange on Rice importers last month, this is all in a bid to discourage importation and encourage local production and processing. There is also a tendency for the price of locally produced rice to drop as supply increases, as competition will be within local producers and processors. The local rice producers will obviously be out muscled and frustated out without govt. intervention.

So we are waiting for Dangote to build a refinery then we ban importation if petroleum products. Let's also wait for Dangote to build cars so we ban vehicle imports too.

These locally produced rice are expected to come from the farms owned by politicians and no where else! If you doubt me, produce a bag of rice from your farm by next harvest and try to export it.

What of our border with Chad and Mali ,has been closed?or smuggling is not going on there.

worlexy:
Imagine, so the bulk of the subsidized petrol meant to be consumed in Nigeria end up being smuggled into our neighbouring countries.

This is a he painful part. All this years we have been subsidizing petrol to other neighboring countries. Our common interests was never well managed at all. That's why from beginning in 2012 I support the scrapping of subsidy. It doesn't benefit anyone

Malawian:

Fulani herdsmen are preventing Nigerian farmers from Farming and the FG is now preventing alternative source of food. This is akin to the food blockade during the civil war. It is still early days for the effects of this policy to be felt. 180milion Nigerians will eat o. As if we are doing Benin Republic a favour by letting them sell us food we will eat to stay alive.

Thank you for your submission.

gunuvi:
I am not against border closure but it will be very evil for Buhari to close the southern borders and not close the northern borders. Meanwhile our government's should be ashamed for the smuggling activities going on at our borders or what are we paying the border securities agencies for?
I tire for this country.

There was a news two days ago stating that some arms smugglers were apprehended while trying to cross the border into Nigeria. One died in the process. I think it cuts across everywhere.

onefamily432:


U b fool. Now I c u contented with d one cup of rice and onoins dey gave you. My broda foolishness and suffer nor dy tire u?

Lol. Do you know what trolling is?