FG considers opening Seme border – Director of Road Transport, Musa

The Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) is working on opening the Seme border, according to the Director of Road Transport in the Ministry of Transportation, Ibrahim Musa.

Musa said that the Federal Government has approved re-opening the Seme land border for the importation of vehicles.

He spoke at the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) meeting on Wednesday which was organized between officials of Nigeria and Benin Republic.

Musa further revealed that the development followed complaints by freight forwarders operating at the Seme border.

“I was here with the former Minister of State for Transportation when the freight forwarders pleaded that the border should be reactivated for the free movement of goods and services.

“The former minister made us prepare a memo to that effect. It was considered and sent to the government,” the Director of Road Transport said.

Similarly, the Customs Area Controller of Seme Border Command, Dera Nnadi also spoke at Wednesday’s ECOWAS event.

Nnadi lamented that the service has noticed a reduction in revenue since the importation of vehicles through the land borders was suspended by the immediate past administration of president Muhammadu Buhari.

“The former Minister of Transportation, responding to some of our requests and from the stakeholders, promised to take them to the Federal Executive Council (FEC), one of them is how to fully open this border,” Nnadi said.

“The Ministry has informed us that the memo has been written to the FEC and it was adopted and that it would be given to the new government, he assured us that all the requests were adopted.”

There was a report recently that the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu (BAT)-led administration had ordered the opening of the Seme border but it turned out to be false.