AN ASSESSMENT OF THE IMPACT OF NIGERIA’S BORDER CLOSURE ON NEIGHBOURING WEST AFRICAN COUNTRIES, 2019 – 2021

Abstract

The study assesses the Impact of Nigeria’s Border closure on Neighboring West African Countries 2019-2021. The objectives of the study were to ascertain the reasons for Nigerian border closure with Neighboring West African Countries, to find out the benefits of Nigeria’s border closure with Neighboring West African Countries, to find out the implications of Nigerian border closure with Neighboring West African Countries, to find out how Nigeria border closure with Neighboring West African Countries affect Nigeria socio-economic relations. The medium used for collecting data was the used of secondary data using comparative advantage theory as basis for analysis. The result shows that, Nigeria which share boundaries with Benin, Niger and closed all of its land borders in order to ensure total control over what comes into the country. The result also shows that border closure boosted the government’s revenue as more duties were collected on the increased volume of goods that entered the country legally through the ports, but the fall in supply of rice led to food price inflation that impacted strongly negatively on Nigerian consumers. The result of the study also shows that Nigerian border closure has impacted on trade and businesses in and outside the country. The result also shows that inflation rate has increase, unemployment among the border communities and rural farmers, small scale businesses are nowhere to be found. The study shows that in various nooks and crannies of Nigeria, the price of one (1) bag of 50 Kg of rice has skyrocketed from less than Ten thousand naira (N10, 000) to Thirty thousand naira (N30, 000) roughly more than the entire monthly salary of Nigerian who receives the minimum wage of N18, 000 and those living in extreme poverty in Nigeria were estimated to 87 million people. Form the data analyzed, it was also revealed that the general inflation especially on food stuff was recorded to be increased to 13.51 % following the land border closure through which majority of the food stuff, items and grains were being imported to Nigeria via Niger and Benin Republics. The study recommends that policy of border closure should always consider the poor people who are the majority in country and became subjects of hardship following the closure land border.