The Federal Government Strategic Communication Team on border closure has alleged that a well-orchestrated international conspiracy against Nigeria was major the reason the country has become a dumping ground for all manner of imported goods, including expired foods.
The team also listed conditions for reopening of the country’s land borders for goods importation from neighbouring countries.
The team, which is a joint force made up of personnel from the Armed Forces, the police, Nigerian Customs Service and the Nigerian Immigrations Service, was set up to monitor the implementation of the partial closure of land borders by the Federal Government since the 20th of August this year.
Speaking during a one-day sensitization program for stakeholders at Nigeria Customs Service, Zone C headquarters, Owerri, Thursday, head of the communication committee of the taskforce and spokesman of the Nigeria Customs Service, Mr. Joseph Attah alleged that some countries have deliberately and gradually been exporting cheap and expired items into the country, thus making the majority of Nigerians dependent on foreign goods and jettisoning local products.
According to him, the said conspiracy being engineered by some western countries is inflicting a mentality of inferiority on Nigerians thereby aggravating the penchant for foreign products at the expense of locally manufactured products.
“Shoes manufactured in such places as Aba, Onitsha, Kano and Sokoto are usually labelled with foreign names and addresses to deceive and to attract unsuspecting buyers because the buyers themselves erroneously believe that foreign materials are better than those locally manufactured.
“Some of these items like rice have expired in the silos where they have been stored before being imported into the country.
“Some of the goods are preserved with carcinogenic substances thereby predisposing our people who use them to cancer. Apparently, this is why our hospitals are filled with patients suffering from various terminal ailments.
“We cannot continue to leave our food security at the mercy of other countries. Any day we have diplomatic rows with these countries, they can decide to shut us down by not supplying us food and that can trigger a famine.”
As one of the conditions to reopen the borders, the team said Nigeria would not accept imported goods that were repackaged by neighbouring countries and brought into the country.
Attah insisted that neighbouring countries must respect the Economic Community of West African States’ ‘rules of origin’ if they must bring goods into the country.
According to him, goods imported for the Nigerian market must be escorted directly from the port of member states to the nation’s land borders and that Nigeria would no longer tolerate repackaging of goods coming into the country.
He said that any goods imported from ECOWAS member states must have the 50 per cent local input in line with the value addition percentage under the ECOWAS Trade Liberalisation Scheme, insisting that no country should hide under the TLS guise to bring in goods without meeting the condition.
