Border closure ‘will create emergency billionaires’

Lai Omotola, group managing director of CFL group, says the closure of land borders will create “emergency billionaires”. 

Omotola said this during an interactive session with journalists in Lagos on Friday.

He said the border closure would only give rise to cartel and the only way the government can tackle the issue of smuggling is by encouraging manufacturers of locally-produced goods to meet rising demand.

In August, the federal government closed land borders, a move President Muhammadu Buhari said was meant to curtail smuggling.

“On this issue of border closure, it wouldn’t  solve any problem because the demand for smuggled items will keep rising, what government can do to outsmart smugglers is through production,” he said.

“If our government is serious about it, we can produce (rice) more than the one being produced in Cotonou, Nigeria has the capacity to produce more than enough to meet demand.

“The policy of border closure will never bring any solution as long as demand still keeps rising. The multiplier effect is that the cartel would still be finding their way, even more than before; and this would automatically create emergency billionaires because of rising demand.”

Omotola said the business environment in the outgoing year has been harsh and chaotic.

“The business environment is harsh and chaotic. Regulators further make life stressful by engaging in all forms of activities to drive up revenue without any regard to the business and that the economy operates at a pedestrian level with essential commodities being the order of the day,” he said.

“It is rather more of what to eat than operating mega projects to boost the economy. All over the country the cranes all coming down. The Federal government is handicapped financially and the state government is worse of. It will be difficult to turn around the situation and even the budget passed will hardly make any impact in the life of the people because a budget that has almost 30 percent to service debt shows where we are heading.”