Maduka Nweke
Built environment experts arebecoming rather apprehensive the closure of Nigeria’s land borders by Federal Government without any plans to address the problems of raw materials, the country may soon find build ing houses an Herculean task.
In the same vein, the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) also during the week said the temporary closure of Nigeria’s land borders by the Federal Government was both good and bad for the economy.
According to Tony Anya Okafor, the idea of closing borders with countries that are self sufficient in the raw materials was not a bad idea. “It is bad when due to high expectations one closes its borders whithout strategies on ground but which have not started yielding positive results.
“Governments that do that put their citizens in straight jackets and inflict hardship across the length and breadth of the country. You don’t jettison what you already have with mere anticipation that the strategies you are putting on ground will come up on time to start solving your problems. It is poor and lazy way of doing things,” he said.
Also speaking, Gabriel Idahosa, Vice President and Chairman, Trade Promotion Board, LCCI said that the closure has however, not affected the participation of West African countries at the just concluded 2019 Lagos International Trade Fair at the Tafawa Balewa Square (TBS), Lagos.
According to him, no fewer than 2, 000 exhibitors from Nigeria, China, Japan, Ghana, India, European Union, Indonesia, Taiwan, Bangladesh, India, Cameroon, Benin Republic and Ethiopia participated in the fair.
Idahosa said: “The view of LCCI is that the border closure is good and bad. Good in the sense that it has forced us to address certain fundamental issues in our economy. We spend a lot of foreign currency to import petroleum products which are taken across the border, while we keep draining our foreign exchange to import the petroleum products.
“It has shown clearly from the volume of products we have now that this has been going on. On the other hand, it has also shown that our capacities to produce some of our products like rice and fishes are actually there, and if we continue to grow these capacities then, we can become truly self-sufficient.”
While commenting on the closure, Mr. Bodurin Idemudia, an architect with an independent firm in Abuja, said that cost of building materials have started going up. He said that some of the building materials he used to buy below N10,000:00 have all added between N2,500 to N5,000.00 with the end not being in sight.
“Government is not wrong by closing the borders but what is wrong there is the timing. If the government has put measures on ground to cushion the effect of initial scarcity, then with time people will acclimatise. But this is not the action, it is the other way round and that is why the decision is bad,”he said.