Nigeria, Benin makes new break for border

BADAGRY, Nigeria: Nigeria’s southwestern border with Benin is notoriously chaotic. Travellers and traders battle corrupt officials, hawkers and buzzing moto-taxis just to get to the other side.

But a new crossing point has sprung up near the well-worn dirt tracks and roadside markets that the West African bloc ECOWAS hopes will make the movement of people and trade a lot easier.

President Muhammadu Buhari flew in by helicopter to cut the ribbon at the Seme-Krake Joint Border Post this week with his Beninese counterpart Patrice Talon.

The well-guarded 17-hectare (42acre) site conforms to international standards and has been built for an estimated 18.3 million euros (US$21 million).

State-of-the-art scanners to detect illicit goods and a weighbridge have been installed.

Customs, immigration and other officials will no longer have to work out of makeshift offices in battered shipping containers and huts.

The president of the ECOWAS Commission, Jean-Claude Kassi Brou, said as well as boosting trade and helping travellers, the border post will help cut smuggling, fraud and corruption.

The European Union is providing ECOWAS with nearly 64 million euros to create seven similar facilities from Nigeria to Ivory Coast, between Ghana and Burkina Faso, and Guinea and Mali.

Ketil Karl sen, the EU ambassador to Nigeria and ECOWAS, told AFP: “A better flow of people, goods and services ... translates into job creation, opportunities and development possibilities.”

On the face of it, developing economies through more formalised trade seems common sense, particularly at Seme-Krake, which is one of Africa’s busiest border crossings.

Some 70 per cent of regional trade is estimated to be conducted in the corridor stretching 900 kilometres (550 miles) along the Atlantic coast from Lagos to Abidjan.

Economic growth is also needed in Nigeria, where about 87 million of its more than 190 million people are classed as living in extreme poverty, and in low-income Benin.

Nonso Obikili, a Nigerian economist, said the new border post could spur the creation of others if it shows that trade across a land border can be as smooth and efficient as via seaports.

ECOWAS and the European Union (EU) both say Seme-Krake is a starting point, as questions are asked whether such a facility is really needed and will even be used.

People from the 15 ECOWAS countries already have the right to free movement and residency in other member states. Not everyone uses formal crossings.