By Demola Abimboye
Nigeria’s neighbours should perish the thought of the giant of Africa opening its borders soon.
Colonel Hameed Ali, Comptroller-General of Nigeria Customs Service, NCS, dropped this hint at the graduation ceremony of Senior Course 3 of the NCS Staff College, Gwagwalada, Abuja yesterday.
“I know that our neighbours are in a haste to get us open the boarders; I think we need to look at our strategic interest first before looking at other people.I hope that Nigerians will agree with us while we are doing this drill,” he said.
He added: “It is our hope that the boarder drill will continue for a while so that we not only sanitize our process but also lay the foundation for our growth and development because that is what we need to get our industrialists think and grow.”
“If we don’t do that, we are going to be in deep problem. By the time we begin to operate the African Continental Free Trade, Nigeria will be a dumping ground for every product from Africa. So, we need to be able to develop our capacity to be able to meet our requirements in terms of goods and services so that we can keep at bay the influx of other goods.
“If we don’t, these goods will come and our industries will continue to die. So we look forward to a situation whereby our industrialists will capitalize on this drill that we are doing so that they can grow and provide those things that we need. The Chinese closed their doors for over 20 years and now they are on top.
“We need to close our own. There is nothing that is being produced today that we cannot consume in Nigeria. Our industrialists do not have to look outward to find the market, we have it right here. And we need to grow that market.”
