Starboytwo:
I knew after the xenophobic experience with south Africa when they disrespected us, something must be done... Something must be corrected asap... Imagine telling NIGERIANS to go home(cuz house no good) now all hands must be on deck to redeem the image of the country...

Let's close the border to achieve self sufficiency, most of the things we import can be produced locally.. food products etc...

Naija shall be great... Just watch..

LegoxMetahuman:
what is border supposed to look like? paradise?

show me a beautiful border.?

TheMainMan:
cool... So almost all this small africa countries depends on us

iswallker:



Mexico and the USA have what a border should look like..

Augiiee:

US-Mexico border

Olalan:
The closure would no doubt force the neighbouring countries to take a stand against smuggling cause it's their economy that's worst hit

mgbadike81:
This article was sponsored by the government, people be wise.

iswallker:



Mexico and the USA have what a border should look like..

engrchykae:
British people mapping out their partitioned Africa while Europe is connected with railroads,foolish Africans are cutting it ourselves off.
Truth is that the west doesn't want a United Nigeria or Africa

DonBenny77:

Few months ago Ghanaian authorities locked up shops and businesses owned in gh. That aside Ghanaian have bullied us enough. Revenge is served.
We have them by their balls now.

CanadaOrBust:
Neptu2 is a female?! Who would’a thunk it

IamCharles123:
So na the border be this

Viking007:
The next bold step should be exiting ECOWAS. Let's do a brexit NigExit.

naptu2:
A Twitter user’s report about the closure of the Nigeria-Niger border.

Phoebe Waller-Bridge Fan Acct @saratu

Ok, let’s do a thread on my time at the Nigeria-Niger border at Babban Mutum village in Katsina yesterday.

Ok, my images aren’t sending so will try when I’m back to civilization.

Anyway. Quick disclosure: this is one border, and I won’t extrapolate further than what I saw. There’s another border in Jibia, for example, but it was far from where I was. I had work there, too, but tired

One of the first things you notice in Babban Mutum: trucks everywhere. Everywhere. Loaded to the hilt with pretty much every household item you can think of.

Household items from those little plastic kettles people use to pray to buckets and plastics, to food to... everything. Just sitting there. Parked and abandoned by their drivers. My contact in the village told me these things have been stuck “there for a long while.”

We drove up to the border gate —if you can call it that. There’s two points where you can see a rope loosely tied to two blocks. One is on the Niger side, one on the Nigeria side. (I’ll post a photo when my internet lets me).

It is manned by Nigerian Customs officials though. They let me take a photo of their office. I teased them about how bored they must be because there’s absolutely nothing going on in the area now. they laughed and just said, “Everywhere is just dry.”

The closure of the border has been pretty hard on the local economy. I asked a fruit seller how business is, and he just shook his head and said, “what can we do?”

But here’s the thing: tough as it all is on their local economy, nobody I talked to is necessarily opposed to the blockade. “Before, when you pass, you just see big trailers passing with Rice. It is making people not eat our local rice.” Buhari’s messaging has been effective.

Another person said to me: “you see these trailers? Everything these people have is because of Nigeria. We are a great country Wallahi. We just don’t see it. See all these their household items. Without us they’re suffering. Now their president will do what Buhari wants.”

People I spoke to understand the blockade as leverage over Niger, smart politics, even if with what they hope is short term pain for their people.

worth noting, though, is that, for many, Niger is simply their backyard. Some people’s farms pretty much straddle both countries. My hunch is it’s easy to cross in and out of Niger with smaller quantities products. If they stop you, you just say “I’m just coming from the farm”

Lastly, one of the drivers from the trucks (I’ll share a photo in a bit) is actually from the area. He tells me he’s hopeful of a deal soon. “This na my chop. So I no go want make the border just to dey like this for long.”

I’ll post photos I took as soon as they’ll send.


Ok, let’s try and send images again. This is me at the border.



Customs officials I met were lovely, and they very kindly let me take photos. I purposely didn’t take photos of any of the people I met.



There’s a whole queue of trucks just parked, full of plastics and household items waiting to cross




https://twitter.com/saratu/status/1185149612904140801

babytoun:
Until I see night pictures I don't believe

Real smuggling happens at night

agarawu23:
I got your message. But your write up is terrible

whatisthetruth:


As in...

Two rusted barrels by the side of the road with one loose chain tied across.

I guess Nigeria is allergic to class on every level.

DonBenny77:

Few months ago Ghanaian authorities locked up shops and businesses owned in gh. That aside Ghanaian have bullied us enough. Revenge is served.
We have them by their balls now.

naptu2:
Apparently a lot of people do not know how Nairaland works.

naptu2:






I didn't write it (that's why it's in quotes. When you see a Nairaland post that's highlighted in this way: , know that it is a quotation). These are tweets by the Twitter user and they are posted exactly the same way that the Twitter user tweeted them (I never ever alter quotes).

Barryseal:
If Nigeria was an export oriented economy, the border closure would have resulted in massive job losses because companies who have vibrant market across the continent would have suffered severe losses and left with no option than to lay off staffs.
The border closure is a show of shame and exposure to Nigeria's ailing industrial sector.

TheMainMan:
cool... So almost all this small africa countries depends on us

Giftexx:

Lol
But no driver dare pass through

DonBenny77:

Few months ago Ghanaian authorities locked up shops and businesses owned in gh. That aside Ghanaian have bullied us enough. Revenge is served.
We have them by their balls now.