ARE NIGERIAN BORDERS POROUS? YES IS THE MOST CONFIDENT ANSWER

Are Nigerian borders porous? Yes is the most confident answer. Are Nigeria neighboring countries of Cameroon, Benin, Mali, and other others depending on petroleum products smuggled from Nigeria for their daily needs? Again the answer is yes.

Mr. Umar Ajia, the chief financial officer of NNPC Limited, gave the above confirmation in the statements while responding to questions before a House of Representatives committee investigating Nigeria’s fuel subsidy regime.

He was quoted thus: “If you have five million naira, you can cross the borders with trucks laden with PMS, that is the bitter truth, we have porous borders; yes we have Customs but I do not know,” , he  added: “PMS crosses everywhere, to Cameroon through the North East, Nigerian PMS gets to Mali; our neighbouring countries hardly import PMS; infact, some of them do not have the LC cover to back up imports.

“Cameroon refinery got burnt sometime last year or so, since that time, they have not imported PMS but they are still using PMS; if you go to Niger, you find that PMS is sold in bottles. “To them, it is a cheaper source, why waste their foreign exchange, so we are subsidizing our neighbours, that is the simple truth,”  These were the assertions of Mr Ajia.

Going further Mr. Umar Ajia said  “States that consume the most are states like Oyo and Ogun State, they even consume more than Lagos State. So you wonder, is it that they have more vehicles than Lagos?  To buttress that he said:

“This explains that these are states with porous borders and that will explain why this bulk evacuation is going out of Oyo and Ogun states, probably neighbouring countries.” And in conclusion Mr. Ajia said that the government of Nigeria is spending N209 per litre of petrol as subsidy.

The reality on ground portrays a bleak response to the country’s progress.