In a recent report, (1Q, 2014), the Minister of Finance, Mrs Ngozi Okonjo-Iwuala, said that the existing 110 per cent duty on the importation of rice was encouraging smuggling of the commodity into the country. “We increased the tariff to 110 per cent, and it encouraged some people to go and grow rice and we grew 1.1million metric tonnes of the product. But it also encouraged smuggling from neighbouring countries because they immediately dropped their own tariffs to 10 per cent,” she said.
And we don't know what to do? Russia invaded The Crimea in Ukraine for reasons that are quite flimsy compared with the blatant enemy action by Benin Republic over this rice issue.
Our Minister of Agriculture, Dr Akinwunmi Adesina and others are working their butts off taking our rice production up, closer to where it should be. And the government and people of Benin Republic fearlessly undermine that. If that is not a declaration of war, I honestly don't know what war is.
I can understand a country like Sierra Leone, with over two centuries of rice production under its belt, deciding to utilise its comparative advantage to have a legitimate share, like India and Thailand, in supplying Nigeria's large and growing population. But Benin Republic? Excuse me! The only way is for the government of Benin to subsidise rice production. In effect their government will spend part of its budget in feeding Nigerians. Can Benin Republic afford that?
The current action of Benin Republic in bringing in several multiples of its rice needs for next to nothing in duty and organising a quasi official smuggling train into Nigeria is a sabotage that no self-respecting nation can condone. There is no way the ECOWAS trade protocols would have allowed such
patently unfriendly action. It is actually futile highlighting the obscene collaboration by our own Nigerian Custom Service and other security agencies in this criminal enterprise.
WHAT SHOULD BE NIGERIA'S SENSIBLE RESPONSE?
I recommend that a flotilla of the Nigerian Navy pays a not-so-friendly visit to Cotonou at the same time when about five brigades of the Nigerian Army undertakes a 2 to 6km hot pursuit incursion into Benin Republic after "criminals, smugglers and car snatchers"! There will definitely be a diplomatic uproar with explanations and apologies flying all over the place. Upon withdrawal of Nigerian troops, we then close our land borders with Benin Republic for a minimum of six months. I would very much love to see them squirm under the load of rice that they cannot eat. The above looks drastic, but our very survival is at stake here.
Prof Bolaji Akinyemi has stated time and again that Nigeria must extract respect (and possibly fear) from its neighbours. It does not need to be loved.
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