Sixteen days after the closure of the land borders between Benin and Nigeria, the effects are there. Everything is affected, daily life, business, traffic. In Sèmè-Kraké, the most important land border between the two countries, trucks and goods have been prohibited since August 20. The Nigerian authorities, furious to see banned food products such as rice, meat and frozen offal from Benin being dumped on their territory, took this initiative. A closure that penalizes trade and those who drive it. On the Benin side, the damage is beginning to weigh.
Sèmè-Kraké concentrates the bulk of the trade which passes by land with Nigeria. This border post, reputed to be very dynamic for all kinds of business and traffic, is very affected. No one is spared. The fruit sellers were the first to be penalized. “All the pineapples rotted and stayed there, on the ground. It's a heavy debt that falls on me, ”laments one of them.

Nestor is a currency trader (exchange operator), they are the most requested in normal times. Nothing works anymore, he says: “Everything is in the water, we don't sell anything anymore, everything is blocked. What I've lost now, I can't even tell you. Everyone shouts. »

Séverin Gnonlonfoun is one of the 500 stranded truckers, he says: “I loaded baby diapers. I had not prepared myself for this situation. I had to borrow money to feed my two apprentices. May Benin and Nigeria understand each other. »

Closed by surprise, no one knows when the measure will be lifted. When Presidents Talon and Buhari met in Japan, the idea of an expanded summit in Niger was reportedly mooted. From informed sources, the Nigerian commissioned a report on the subject. As for Patrice Talon, he has set up a crisis committee.

Effects on the Nigerian side

According to President Buhari, this measure would have been motivated by the massive smuggling activities, in particular of rice, operated on this corridor. This situation would represent a threat to the food self-sufficiency policy implemented by the Nigerian government. A choice that will however have consequences for consumers in Nigeria as well because the price of rice is likely to increase. The analysis of Philipp Heinrigs, economist at the Sahel and West Africa Club of the OECD:

“We may not have taken enough account of the consequences for the consumer because in many of these decisions, it is above all at the level of production and processing that we are looking. We forget the consequences for the consumer, especially the poor who will have to pay more for their food. We also have to see if there is enough capacity to process locally produced rice? Is there enough infrastructure to produce rice? All of these are decisions, investments that require a certain period of time to be implemented. With a border closure for a limited period, we cannot really encourage the private sector to consider this as structurally important to influence policies or financial decisions.

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