The Federal Government has listed five conditions for reopening of the country’s land borders for goods importation from neighbouring countries.
As one of the conditions, the Federal Government said Nigeria would not accept imported goods that were repackaged by neigbouring countries and brought to Nigeria.
It said the conditions which would be presented to Benin and Niger Republic in two weeks, must be met before the Nigerian land borders would be re-opened.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, disclosed this during the meeting of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on the Temporary Partial Closure of Land Borders in Abuja on Monday.
He insisted that neighbouring countries must respect the Economic Community of West African States’ ‘rules of origin’ if they must bring goods into the country.
The preconditions for both goods and humans coming into the country, however, applied to all ECOWAS member states.
Onyeama said that goods imported for the Nigerian market must be escorted directly from the port of member states directly to the nation’s land borders.
Also at the meeting, the Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs, Col. Hamid Ali (retd), said the January 31, 2020 date for re-opening of the borders was not sacrosanct.
Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, was also in attendance at the meeting which held at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs headquarters, Abuja.
Explaining the conditions, the foreign affairs minister said 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 30 per cent local input in line with the value addition percentage under the ECOWAS Trade Liberalisation Scheme.
