I think the land border closures is a right and necessary step to causing an economic implosion that will resonate prosperity in all sectors of the economy, especially Agriculture and Manufacturing.

But the problem remains if our law enforcement agencies can ensure a water tight security around the borders and other porous areas and flashpoints to dissuade smuggling.

This is also the right time to promote the local content initiatives, by bringing in the best hands and heads together.

I personally, always have my reservations about some economic policies coming out from Buhari's 'kitchen'. Maybe years to come would either prove me right or wrong about this move.

What did they keep in place to check issues that may arise as a result of the closure?

subtlemee:
What did they keep in place to check issues that may arise as a result of the closure?

primarily those worst hit are local farmers and traders within other sub saharan Africa. As long as we remain independent in the literally sense of it and producing what we consume here. The main objective is to encourage domestic production, and I think that the agricultural sector and SMEs are key areas to be looked into. Buhari and his economic advisers should be religious enough to carry us all along with these plans.

It is a very good policy

I don't think is a nice decision. It is the right step in the right direction.

Though the FG should brace up for matters arising: Establishing a new port or equipping the ones on ground must be it's first priority.

Ask me over and over again I'd say same thing.
Border should remain closed. Nigeria should pull out of the free trade whatever it's a scam.



Lets try this for a whole 4 years

Even the oppositions are in supports of Buhari about the border closures . Most sensible things for Nigeria government to do since 1999.

This is a huge opportunities for our local farmers and manufacturers

The dvmbest and most irrational policy ever undertaken by any government. At the end of the day,it's still the same masses that would suffer. I am sure it's foreign rice that is eaten in Aso Rock and the homes of these politicians. Am in awe how people even support this.

I look at sustainability of any policy and this is not sustainable ...can we close our borders for 5 years or 10 years or 25 years

Buhari like most Nigerians like treating the symptoms not root cause

The problem is we import foreign rice

Root cuase
1) our local grains are short Nigerians prefer longer grain
2) our yield are small average 1 ton per hectare while Thailand is 10ton per hectare
3) we have evil birds that can eat up ur farm in few days ...eat everything

Closing border is like forcing ur child to listen to radio because he goes to the next compound to watch TV which he love .

My solutions
1) we need to develop our seeds ...Jonathan government did a lot on this regard don't know why they were not continued ...we need to develop long grains

2) develop grains that yeild between 6 to 10 tons per hectare ...n can be planted 2 to 3 times a year

3) give loans to major rice farmers already to expand

4 ) develop ways to handle those evil birds ...we can learn from iseral

Create rice farming villages

Place 50% import duty on rice imported use the money to fund the above

In 5 years we can achieve full sufficiency then u can ban import

Do we have border ?

Funny how those who support Trump's wall building, oppose Buhari's land border closure.

Best decision ever from any civilian government in Nigeria. A smart Nigerian should look at how to take advantage of this opportunity and grow.

Can we close borders for medical trips too. So that our health sector can exploded according op

It depends on how we manage it. If we don't aggressively police our borders, even as we have slammed them shut, we would soon be back in square one as smugglers would simply become more ingenious and find alternative routes to bring these same things into our country.

Aside this closing, we have to start an aggressive campaign towards the patronage of locally made goods. This our counter-intuitive slant towards ANYTHING foreign has to be stopped! It should be a wholistic push; our music and cultural perceptions should take a shift towards giving primacy to Nigeria-born ideas and goods. Enough of the self-hate.

We have a big population, though our spending power is still abysmal, but we can start investing in EDUCATION, power, technology and metallurgy. We need to give our industriousness a big boost. This is the time.

We have saved a daily eight [8] million litres of 'scarce' petrol already. Imagine the billions of dollars that we literally throw over our borders, in subsidy, that has no commensurate [if any at all] benefit on our lumbering economy. What do we get from these same Anglophone and Francophone neighbours: Insurgency, banditry, cross-border conflicts, economic theft...and a lot of disrespect and hate! It is about time we tidied up our acts.

We can do it. We once did it; we successfully weaned ourselves off foreign music. We replaced the Sisqos, Puff Daddies, Tupacs and Craig Davids of then with our own: Dbanj, TuFace and Co. And now we are the music and entertainment powerhouse of Africa! We can.

It is time to EDUCATE and EMPOWER [literally] our people.

There’s only one word:
Excellent

Border closure enriches the government at the expense of the people. Whose fault is it that rice us smuggled into the country ? Why do we have and pay customs. Rice is now on the high side and Nigerians are paying more for it with more taxes the government is imposing.

Creating scarcity to sell rice at a higher price is just a false reality. After the rice that have been harvested is sold at a high price, they will still open the border.

It is just like the exchange rate and the fuel subsidy. The government has to constantly pump money into the force market to maintain at a false rate. Has to subsidize petrol with billions to maintain a fake price.

Most foreign investors will hardly invest in a country whose exchange rate is not governed by supply and demand.

If we want agriculture to do well. Government should allow importation of foreign rice, by sea and land. Increase duty to make it expensive. Invest the difference in Agriculture. Given loans to farmers and processors etc.

Same with fuel, remove subsidy and invest in infrastructure.

But this government of old men without a vision can't get anything right. They just love power for the sake of it.

the Border should remain closed so that we won't have anything to Bother.



since some people already have their blood burried in smuggling, and they don't want to follow the legitimate path to importation.
shebi dem no wan get sense ni, sense dey come soon.

To me its a good move.

But the government should encourage industrialization now since we have known things that have taken a surge since the closure.

Let them reduce import duties on manufacturing machineries, and industrial tools plus give out medium size loans now than ever to encourage entrepreneurs.

NimrodEndOfDays:
The dvmbest and most irrational policy ever undertaken by any government. At the end of the day,it's still the same masses that would suffer. I am sure it's foreign rice that is eaten in Aso Rock and the homes of these politicians. Am in awe how people even support this.

Make Una relocate, Una no gree
Leave Nigeria matters to Nigerians, Una say Mbano

Well, me have reached conclusions that good news do purge some set of people sha

It caught us unaware.

If not farmers and everybody alike would have braced up ?

Open the goddam border

Let's keep a list of those people bragging here that it's a good policy. By December, they will all start crying like canary bird when the thing bite their pockets well well.
Why on earth will you support a policy that puts the deadweight loss on the citizens.
If truly we are self sufficient and efficient in producing rice locally, it will be in abundance and the price will crash naturally without any border closure but in this case, the price of local and imported rice have skyrocketed and hovering around 25k - 30k from 15k level.
This shows there is a deliberate policy to strangle the masses and they are ignorantly coming here to sing praises of a bizarre policy.
Can someone tell me who banned foreign music in the 90s before the local music and artists took over and flooded the entertainment industry. Today, Nigerians don't even keep track of what P.diddy or Beyonce is singing. That's the natural painless way things should go.
By Christmas, I hope Nigerians won't swallow their pride and go to Benin and Ghana govt. On bended knees to apologize for closing the border.
For those people too young here, please ask your uncles or aunts about the previous failures of ban on the importation of rice in the 80s - it only created wealth for the smugglers and poverty for the masses.
Let's pray these countries don't gang up and retaliate against Nigeria because we will be the biggest loser - starting from the banning of Dangote Sugar and Cement exports to the west coast which outweighs alot of our imports from the same region.

Probably one of the best policies this government has implemented.

Let me educate someone as to why.

Nigeria is trying to be self sufficient especially in the area of rice, Nigerians consume a lot of rice, a whole lot of it and it will be best if this rice is produced locally. Not only will it boost our economy it will also reduce the strain on forex.

Now most of the rice we consume come from Asian countries like Indonesia etc, to discourage foreign rice from coming into Nigeria, the Nigerian government choose to either increase the import duty (tax) on the product or outrightly ban rice importation.

To bypass the above condition, smugglers now import the rice into Benin republic, from there they take advantage of the free trade zone thing to bring the rice into Nigeria. Now, this has become a loss/loss situation for Nigeria, because, not only is the rice still coming to Nigeria, we are not even generating tax on the imported rice because the tax has been paid to Benin republic and brought into Nigeria free.

The Nigerian government has pleaded with the neighboring countries to please help us checkmate these items from being dumped into Nigeria, but they refused, they refused because of the huge profit they are making at the expenses of Nigerians. Well, the Nigerian government has responded, we can not tell you not to allow these items come into your country, no wahala, but we will make sure it doesn’t come into Nigeria by closing our borders.

Now, they have load sh%t of rice sitting in their country and no way of moving it to Nigeria, more so business is no longer moving for them and they are now feeling the pressure.

The unfortunate thing is that, products that are locally produced in those countries can not come into Nigeria also, now it’s a loss/loss situation for them. Countries like Ghana unfortunately got caught in the cross fire, this is because Ghana do not share a land border with Nigeria and have to pass their products via one of the countries we share land border with and since we have closed the border, their products can not come in too. The government is talking with the Ghanaians to see how to resolve this problem.

Secondly, fuel in Nigeria is probably one of cheapest in Africa, this is because the Nigerian government is paying subsidy on fuel. If you don’t know what subsidy is, let me educate u. It means, if fuel is supposed to be sold for N300, the government will pay N150, and then you the citizen will pay N150. Now, after the government pay for subsidy, some wicked Nigerians will move the fuel to other countries like Benin republic and sell it off there at the rate of say N250 and make extra profit. Hope u catch the drift?

See that border ehn? Make then no open am at all. I Dey chop normal Nigerian rice now, na local chicken we dey kill chop now, no more imported frozen chicken wey dem use chemical preserve.

It's a bitter pill we all must chew to see this country move forward


By far the most sensible decision made by Buhari.

He should also start patronising local hospitals.

Leadership means showing the way not telling people what to do.

Sound idea! Those borders must remain closed. In fact I support those borders remaining closed for at least 1 year while we improve border security and build our local manufacturing.
This border closure will force rapid boost of our local economy in the long run. It will be painful at first. Demand will far outweigh supply initially before we reach an equilibrium and the scales tip.
So do not expect any reduction in prices for now!! This move may just the best thing this man has done in a long while and if he maintains it, nigerians themselves will be shocked at the immense benefit and boost to our local economy.
This move alone can lift millions out of poverty in a short while IF WELL IMPLEMENTED!

The masterstroke in addition ,would be to deregulate power generation. Power has no business being on the exclusive list. At least deregulate power in the states that give this country the most revenue : lagos, rivers, kano,oyo,ogun,anambra

Aa

Its a great move... anybody that thinks otherwise should use the sea ports

1. the border closure is the best thing this government has done , but they need to close all the smuggling route in the north , other wise I will say this is just to enrich some people, if the government can encourage more private investors to bring in one of the best rice milling company into nigeria, then we will be good to go, the stone rice will become history

2. the border closure has also help in fight against terrorism as they are now finding it hard to bring in there weapons, so the bandit and terrorist who usually hide their arms in good coming are no longer finding it easy

but the government need to do more by stopping illegal immigrants

It is not good at all, we tend to copy western nations that are far more developed than us, how can u close border when we don't even have any infrastructure working in the country, common power to encourage production we can't boast of, so what's the point . They leave major problems and chase shadows. A country that is not near self sufficiency in the next 100million years to come and u are closing border, until power issue is solved in this country nothing will ever work, to get every other thing right we must start from steady power generation because if solved it will go a long way in reducing crime, joblessness, poverty, banditry and so on.. Buhari and his zombies advising him are senseless I feel like strangling them