Dan
Issa (Niger) (AFP) - "Nothing crosses into Nigeria and nothing comes
out. It's hermetically sealed," said Amadou Idi, sitting in a makeshift
shelter to keep out of the rain, and reflecting on the downturn in his
luck.
"We twiddle our thumbs and pray."
Idi's job is a
transiting agent -- to get goods across the border to Nigeria at the Dan
Issa frontier post in southeastern Niger.
But he has been out of
work since Nigeria dramatically closed its borders with its neighbours
on August 20, declaring it wanted to put an end to chronic smuggling.
Niger,
which shares a 1,500-kilometre (900-mile) border with Nigeria, has been
badly hit by the closure, along with Benin. Both nations are among the
poorest in the world.
A long line of lorries from Niger and
elsewhere in West Africa is stranded at Dan Issa. Some are full, some
laden with goods. The drivers and their assistants sleep on the ground
or in the cabins of their vehicles.
All along the 30 kilometre
road between the border and the city of Maradi, customs officials and
police officers sip tea or coffee and chat.
Groups of young people at a loose end and motorbike taxi drivers short of customers play cards under the shade of the trees.
- 'Maradi is suffocating' -
Three
and a half million people live in and around Maradi. Concern and
indignation are growing among the people there, most of whom survive on
agriculture and trade.
That makes them highly dependent on their
southern neighbour Nigeria, the biggest economy in west Africa with its
oil riches and 190 million people.
"Maradi is suffocating," said
Ali, a kabou-kabou driver, the local motorbike taxi. "The city is
usually bustling with people -- now it's almost dead."
"We are
very angry," said Ahmadou Amadou, who imports motorbikes for a living.
"The business sector is wasting away." If the border closure continues,
then they will be ruined, he added.
Some locals remember the last
time this happened, back in the 1980s -- and it lasted two years. And
it was the same president, Muhammadu Buhari, who was responsible.
Buhari
closed the borders shortly after he came to power. From April 1984 to
February 1986 he kept them closed in response to the falling price of
oil, a drop in exports and the smuggling of contraband.
In fact the border was only reopened after Buhari was toppled in a coup.
Amadou Oumarou, another Maradi resident, said his government should sit down at the table with Nigeria and negotiate a solution.
Falling
prices are hitting locally made products due to a lack of buyers in
Nigeria, while the price of products imported from Nigeria is soaring,
he said.
Some traders are selling their rice cut-price just to
get rid of their stock, said Chaibou Tchombiano, general secretary of
Niger's union representing traders, importers and exporters.
"We
used to sell a 100-kilo (220-pound) sack of cowpeas for 18,500 CFA
francs ($30, 27 euros). The price has fallen to 17,000, even 16,000
francs, since the border was closed," said cereal trader Haruna Moussa.
- Spur for smuggling -
The impact of the closure is having a ripple effect reaching as far as the capital Niamey, 650 km away.
"A
tonne of imported cement (produced by the Nigerian corporation
Dangote), which used to sell for 95,000 CFA francs has gone up to
120,000 francs, and cigarettes have risen from 25 to 100 francs each,"
said Mamanane Nouri, head of a consumers' group.
Ironically, one
effect of the border closure seems to have been a rise in smuggling,
which is taking place under the nose of customs officials
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