[BREAKING] Nigeria reopens borders after 16-month closure
President Muhammadu Buhari has directed the immediate reopening of the country’s land borders, after nearly 16 months of closure. This
President Muhammadu Buhari has directed the immediate reopening of the country’s land borders, after nearly 16 months of closure.
This was disclosed on Wednesday in a tweet via the Twitter handle @NGRPresident.
“President Buhari has directed the immediate opening of four land borders: Seme, Illela, Maigatari, and Mfun,” it said.
Nigeria’s land borders have been closed to its West African neighbours for more than a year as part of efforts to check smuggling of contraband into the country. A partial closure was initially announced on August 22, 2019.
Markets Reporters reported on Wednesday that the Democratic Republic of Congo had overtaken Nigeria, Africa’s biggest economy, to become the second-largest intra-African trade economy.
The 2020 African Trade Report, released by the African Export-Import Bank on Tuesday, said the value of total intra-African trade fell by 5.23 percent in 2019, reducing its overall contribution to overall African trade from about 15 percent in 2018 to 14.4 percent in 2019.
