ABUJA — Nigeria met with its West African neighbors on Tuesday over its land border closure, with the African giant insisting on levying duties on goods transiting to its country through neighboring nations to curb smuggling. In July, Nigeria signed up to an African Continental Free Trade Area, a project to create a $3.4 trillion economic bloc, despite fears that Nigeria could be flooded with cheap goods from competitive neighbors. “We cannot continue to subsidize the rest of West Africa,” Mohammed said, adding that Nigeria has been able to save around 30% from its fuel consumption as a result of the border closure. Some 10-20% of Nigerian fuel is smuggled to neighboring countries as gasoline is heavily subsidized in the country and prices are higher in neighboring countries. Nigeria, Benin and Niger agreed this month to set up a joint border patrol force to tackle smuggling.

Source: National Post November 27, 2019 20:37 UTC