Area4Area:
Everything you wrote made no sense and no based on logic but I'd focus on your last paragraph, why has the American government increasing tariffs on imports from Mexico, Canada, EU countries, China, Japan etc and the American economy is booming now with one of the lowest unemployment in their economic history

America's economy was booming when Trump got there. Obama left him a booming economy.

The tariffs were placed by Trump and not America. Left to the U.S congress, they would have blocked him. The American president however has unilateral powers to increase tariffs or even ban products. He does not need the approval of Congress and that is why he can get away with it.

Stats on the economy show that the tariffs have had negative effects on America. The economy was expected to expand by at least 3% last year but stopped at 2.9%. This was blamed on Trump's tariff.

Why don't you Google whether Trumps tariffs have been beneficial or bad for the US economy. It is not what is driving the US economy. Trump's tax cuts probably play a more major role.

tiredoflife:


And when he cuts of electricity supply they decide to block the river Niger to build their hydropower dam
Hope u wont come crying
There was a reason we sell some electricity to them
Is so the water would be allowed to flow freely to our dams
Learn to understand things before u talk

hydro dam is not the only source of power in naija.
Obviously u don't understand how power generation works. So keep kwayet

Are we talking about the same America that is building a wall at its border with Mexico?

tegrianonigltd:



Have you passed the border before?? Then you will know they are not our problem, we are our problem, excuse naim buhari Dey find.. in Togo you can’t buy drugs without prescription? Things are orderly, same as other nation, Nigeria is loosed, we are our problem abeg, buhari and con keep blaming, Jonathan can’t be blamed again, now blaming Small nations wey no reach 2 milliin, with continued drugs in Mexico and co, America will not close border, why? They can’t.. Nigeria just last visionarians as leaders, example, if you arrange your home well, your neighbor will respect you and use you as example to others, they won’t set boundaries, from Togo to Seme border, this people have smooth road with lights, I drover at 11:30pm from Togo got to seme early morning last year waka waka, I enjoyed the road trip, when I got to Nigeria, the first thing na one big pot hole, beg beg immigration and customs, na Nigeria customs Dey allow these smuggglers to pass. Abi them wan leave Benin customs pass Nigeria own free, we hae Customs, bribing

The president shouldn't have close the border,he should have charged the so call beggers call customs to tighten the security around the border,corruption along the borders only is so porous than the national assembly.

scholes0:




It is an open secret that the border closure and general border security in the north is way more lax than it is in the south. Stop pretending like you don't know. Even the current border closure with Niger is only a partial closure.

Have you been to the Niger border or just saying what you feel, why has the president of Niger being begging Buhari to reopen the border just like the president of Benin?

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

I have noticed that you are always fond of spewing a lot of textbook economic jargon, perhaps to come across as being smart. But in practical terms a lot of your theoretical postulations are crap, sorry to say. Why is America not sitting back and allowing every 'cheaper' everything to be imported from China, because going by your jaundiced theory, even America ought to continue importing virtually everything from China since China will always have a comparative advantage over the u.s in virtually most if not all areas of manufacturing.

As a matter of fact, hardly do most countries have any comparative advantage over China in most areas of manufacturing, so according to you everybody ought to just sit back and keep importing from China just because they can't compete with their cheap labour, while they watch their local industries die and trade deficits continue to grow. Not even the West (where you get most of your theoretical jargon) practices what you are trying to preach to a developing country like Nigeria.

I suggest you watch the following DW documentary to see how even the hypocritical Western powerhouses (including American, German, and other EU countries) whose economic theories you apparently gulp like eba don't even practice what they themselves preach by stealthily deploying protectionist policies in order to protect their econonies and local industries while hypocritically using the same mouth to spew the exact same jargon you are regurgitating, yet you want a developing country like Nigeria to follow such like mumus?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnW9ZQtI1_E

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.

Question. Who are our "home grown rice producers"? Is is the farmers who were killed off by Boko Haram and rampaging herdsmen, or the politicians who own large farms in the North and Southwest?

Nigeria has refused to create an enabling environment for business and with that in place, you would not need to ban a needle to make your local businesses competitive in the market. We only know how make people suffer, kill, steal and defraud.

Ewedegubbler:
So naive dey supply electricity that we dont have to these ungrateful idiots`? please baba, tighten the screw there and in Niger and Chad too. South Africa should be the next, Nationalize MTN and bankrupt that their PIC so that their eye go open...

Smh, typical black man retrogressive thinking.

My President is Fulani....

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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.

I'm telling you. Go to jibia in katsina, a border town to Niger and see the mass smuggling going on there. Filling station everywhere for smuggling

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

Do you have any other news that it is not only partially closed?

No end in sight to Nigeria's border closures
18.09.2019

Nigeria abruptly sealed parts of its western border with Benin more than 30 days ago, followed by partial closures of its northern border to Niger.

https://www.dw.com/en/no-end-in-sight-to-nigerias-border-closures/a-50479587

The last paragraph got me

I think I support president Buhari on this, we cannot continue to play "big brother" at our own detriment to countries that fails to know our value, but this should not be done with the intention to punish them but to develop our own country.

gud day, pls i seriously need a job, i am a graduate of accounting (hnd) 07037799108

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

Let's apply your theory on local car production using innosons as our example.

grandstar:


Do you k now that these 2 countries put together do not account for up to 5% of Nigeria's GDP? To blame them for the sorry state of things is simply sad and laughable. Shouldn't the country hide its face. They are the ones even to be terrified of our goods flooding their marketing.

It is as simple as blaming Nigerians for the lack of jobs for South Africans in South Africa. The real causes are the rigid labor laws and the poor economic growths rates in that country.

Why are goods being smuggled into Nigeria from these countries/ Because of Nigeria's addiction to protectionism to spur production rather than much sounder economic policies. If the import duties were low, there would be no smuggling.

Protectionism has failed to industrialize the country. Manufacturing only accounts for 10% of GDP. Ghana with a much more open economy than Nigeria is 24%. Ghana shows the country does not need to ban this and that to industrialize.

Countires do best when they focus resources on areas they have comparative advantage. It is like sowing seed on good soil. You blow only where you're good at. You don't blow where you suck at. It likes sowing seed on rocky ground. Nigeria through import bans is sowing seed on rocky ground.

Nigeria has no comparative advantage in rice production and this is the economic reason why the country imports rice in the first place. The problem has never been about production but economics. Imported rice will probably cost about 11,000 without tariffs but local rice is 17,000. To get people to eat local rice, the government bans the stuff and people are forced to eat the local for 17,000.

The question is how does paying 17k help Nigerians? The primary cause of hunger isn't a lack of food: it is actually a lack of money. The British tried to encourage local farmers to grow rice but the weren't interested. They preferred cocoa, palm oil, rubber and other products. Nigeria was a world leader in some of them. That is the power of comparative advantage. That is still referred to as a golden age.

Germany exports over $1.5 trillion worth of goods yearly, that is thrice Nigeria's GDP . The population of Germany is less than half of Nigeria's. Exports of manufactured goods by the way is one of the reasons manufacturing accounts for 24% of Ghana's GDP!

The massive smuggling is simply economics or the market informing you that your policy makes no sense.

Nigeria is simply a shameless workman blaming his tools.

You know this!!! This government of blame has started blaming other countries in the next level, I can't wait for them to start blaming more countries for the poor economic decisions we make. We can continue the blame with Cameroon and Chad. Your first paragraph really won me over.

The Nigerian Customs Service is a cesspool of corruption and it is the main reason we have problems with imports and exports today. Have you tried exporting something from your farm? I sound like a broken record already

alphaNomega:





What makes it good? We only love to see people suffer.

Do you know if Nigeria developed her seaports and made the clearing process less rigorous, all those containers that dock at Cotonou would flood Nigeria?

Nigeria brought this upon herself. After banning several items importers now prefer to bring them through a country try that accepts them, pay duties to that government and smuggle it to Nigeria! Why ban the goods in the first place when you refuse to create an enabling environment for such goods to be produced locally?

As a result of reduced volume at our fuccking ports, their revenue declined. In order to improve those figures, the government now decided to increase import duties on certain items like cars. imagine paying 70% of the value of your car as duty alone, coupled with the devaluation of naira, a brand new car that should cost N6m nnow goes for N25m!

This problem did not start today and the people running this company called Nigeria should brace up for a shocker in a few years time. It only gets worse!

Understand the basics first before commenting,
Nigeria never banned imports, it only stopped giving cheap dollars to those importers and they had to go to the black market to source for it and you can still import rice through our ports.

Nigeria then increased tariffs on rice in order to encourage local farmers to grow more.

Unscrupulous importers in connivance with Benin and Niger governments decided to use their countries as launching pads for the goods to be smuggled into Nigeria.

Nigeria loses in tariffs and our local farmers suffer in turn but the importers, smugglers, Benin Niger governments win.
That is what is called an economic war against Nigeria.

Nice development, the illegal importations/smuggling is becoming too much...afterall, the government ain't asking for too much! Police your boarders and we back in business.

Our problems are multifaceted and they are not just limited to the madness at the borders. Four years ago when the Fulani herdsmen crisis picked up steam in the middle belt, I predicted that Nigeria was heading for a national crisis where food shortage was imminent and slowly, we're getting there. When the government says it's closing borders to encourage local rice production sales and the local rice cost as much as 19-21k in the market and minimum wage is 30k(which has not yet even been agreed on), I wonder what kind of magic we want to perform. From taraba to adamawa, nassarawa, benue, plateau, zamfara, we have insecurity of herdsmen crisis, armed banditry and kidnappings. Communities that were hitherto known for farming have been sacked and a lot of farmers have had to flee from those villages down to the south thereby, reducing the output of locally farmed goods. Same thing can be said of states like borno, yobe. Even southern kaduna, katsina and sokoto are not left out of the madness of insecurity that is ravaging the north of Nigeria. At the office, I see trailers of northerners coming into Lagos every blessed day. The long and short of it is that the insecurity in the north and middle belt, has reduced the location production of food. Secondly, some of the people who still farm grains, yam and rice in the north, do not sell them immediately. They wait for the price to go high in the northern market before selling so they can make more profit and when these goods come to the south, the prices increase astronomically. Why do these prices go so high you might want to ask? The number of check points these transporters have to pass through and settle with bribes from the north to the south, is alarming. These monies are added to the cost of the goods and when they get here, become very expensive. It's the sole reason why you can buy a bag of local rice in the north for 9k as I have heard but when it gets to Lagos, it sells for 19k and above. It's the same reason why you can buy a basket of tomatoes for 5k in the north but when it gets to Lagos, it becomes 18k or more. This is another reason why traders would rather prefer to buy the products from our neighbors in Benin and bring them into Lagos. If goods produced locally in Nigeria can become so expensive just by moving from the north to the south, then you can expect that people would rather choose to import cheaper ones from our neighbors and sell. Look at automobiles for example. Why should the tariff for a car coming in through our Nigerian ports, be more expensive than the one paid when vehicles come in through Cotonou? If clearing cars in Lagos ports are cheap, who would bother to buy the ones from Cotonou? The failure of govt in Nigeria automatically contributes and encourages smuggling activities across our borders and until the government at the center gets its acts right, we'd still continue to deal with these problems. Like I said earlier, our problems are multifaceted and the truth is that, smuggling across the border has been made attractive due to the failure of govt policies at the center.

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

It's widely oppened

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ek6CgOjwLo

I dont know maybe due to the time the mod decided to push this post to front or you re finding difficulties assimilating but you forgot to read that part that said even Nigerian Neigbours in the North (Niger) are also suffering the same as Benin...

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.

godwinkessi:
So does it mean our government are doing their own form of xenophobic attacks on other Africans?

Very ignorant comment from self righteousness

unikwa:
Fix Nigeria's borders, and people won't be patronizing foreign borders.

When goods are sent to a Nigerian border, the headache is too much in the clearing stage.
I've heard that it takes longer to clear goods from Nigerian port than it takes to transport it from its origin.
At Benin however, clearing goods from the ports it like visiting the post office to collect your parcel.

Buhari has the power to clean up Nigeria. Why doesn't he do it?

Exactly!!!! This is why I would rather send my goods through Cotonou than the godforsaken Nigerian ports. We had an easier clearing system before evil and greedy customs officers in collaboration with politicians made it all shít. Today we are blaming little Togo and Niger republic.

This problem did not start today and I have tears in my eyes as Nigerians are applauding this as the best decision this government has taken this year!

It will cost you more money to move your goods from Lagos ports to the SouthEast than it would cost you to bring same goods from Netherlands to Lagos. Nigerians hate themselves so much.

Fake news

Earthquake1:
Nigerian youths don't know anything about this because this is not Tacha

it's too early to start Tacharing

Area4Area:
Understand the basics first before commenting,
Nigeria never banned imports, it only stopped giving cheap dollars to those importers and they had to go to the black market to source for it and you can still import rice through our ports.

Nigeria then increased tariffs on rice in order to encourage local farmers to grow more.

Unscrupulous importers in connivance with Benin and Niger governments decided to use their countries as launching pads for the goods to be smuggled into Nigeria.

Nigeria loses in tariffs and our local farmers suffer in turn but the importers, smugglers, Benin Niger governments win.
That is what is called an economic war against Nigeria.

Your importer class of Nigerian could not care less about anything other than thieir own money.

Do they add any value to this country? They are just greedy self serving hustlers.

alphaNomega:


Kindly explain who is stealing from who? Remember these importer/smugglers used to bring these goods directly to Nigeria but the useless government decided to ban them. That created the chain of events that led to what is happening today and it will get worse. The final stage is a depopulation of the country when people realise they can no longer get what they want but this is the long term plan by niggers in charge. When you are gone, they take over your landed assets and begin to establish their style of government.

I apologize for speaking a bit off point and you may not understand me.

Where did you read that Nigeria banned rice imports?

alphaNomega:


Question. Who are our "home grown rice producers"? Is is the farmers who were killed off by Boko Haram and rampaging herdsmen, or the politicians who own large farms in the North and Southwest?

Nigeria has refused to create an enabling environment for business and with that in place, you would not need to ban a needle to make your local businesses competitive in the market . We only know how make people suffer, kill, steal and defraud.

The free trade between these countries is a parasitic one with Nigeria loosing on both ends ,with our smuggled fuel and their rice being smuggled in.

However ,the bolded is my only problem with this whole border closure.First world countries practice protectionism but usually make sure their local production is up to the task of filling the void in areas where they are raising punitive tarriffs.In some countries its even flexible e.g when it is harvest season ,tarriffs on important for such produce goes up to discourage importation of such goods.But that wont happen with the smuggling which is the main problem .



In a country where we still have herders and farmers clash one would think that will be the top priority of the govt by being transparent in solving this crisis but they went to bring ruga.

It's not our business, these bloody peasants that enjoy treating Nigerians like dirt...anyways it's an economic measure, all nations are fighting for self nowadays...rise of nationalism.

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.

óò ní làakaye

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?

Please import two batch of goods at the same time, send one through Lagos and another through Cotonou and tell us your experience. It is the Nigerian government that created the ground for smugglers to thrive in the first place and today they turn around to point fingers at smaller countries in the next level of blame game.

Okay, you don't want to import. You want to be a local producer, is there an enabling environment for you to start a business? Let's say you manage to run a farm and now intend to export your produce, has Nigerian customs dealt with you before? They will delay you until you loose everything you stand to gain from the business. Remember you are dealing with perishable items

I thought they said it was d north that was exporting tomatoes to d south... yeye dey real dey smell... dat is d north will suffer if dz country break up..