President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has issued a dire warning that the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is headed for a turbulent path on its journey to integration.
According to the President, the possibility of a single ECOWAS currency and a greater integration among the various economies are being threatened by Nigeria’s closure of its western border.
He indicated that the closure of the Benin border is a big blow to the ECOWAS project.
ALSO READ : Our credibility at stake; MMDCEs referendum must not fail — Akufo-Addo to appointees
President Akufo-Addo issued these lamentations on Monday when an eight-member delegation of the First Bank of Nigeria (FNB) paid him a courtesy call at the Jubilee House.
He questioned how the single currency and the innumerable economic and security challenges would be addressed when member states deliberately shut out other states from their economies.
Nigeria authorities on August 20, 2019, unilaterally closed its land border with the Republic of Benin in what it said was a stop-gap measure to the smuggling of contraband goods across the Seme Border.
Incidentally, the government also closed the country’s eastern border with Cameroun, to curb the smuggling of rice to boost local production, it says.
Business people from the western part of the region have described the move as a protectionist measure, which has consequences for intra-regional trade.
Traders and the business community have been the hardest hit especially importers of food products, who have had to watch helplessly as goods rot at the border.
President Akufo-Addo warned that closure of the border is a definite setback to the ECOWAS integration project.
He called for dialogue and other considerations to enable the region to live in harmony and to allow nationals of the community to fulfill their ambitions.