The Nigerian border closure continues to generate reactions in and out of the country. The latest reaction is from the country’s West African neighbour – Ghana. Ghanaian president, Nana Addo Akufo-Addo, said the action of the Nigerian government is a big blow to regional integration policy.
President Nana Addo Akufo-Addo of Ghana on Tuesday, October 29 lamented over the border closure by the Nigerian government. The Ghanaian president described the action of Nigeria as a big blow to regional integration in West Africa, adding that it could negatively affect the regional integration agenda. He made the comment at a meeting with a delegation from a top Nigerian bank at the Jubilee House in Accra.
In his words, “We are about to enter a delicate period in the ECOWAS journey looking ahead of the possibility of a single currency and trying to forge greater integration among our economies and at the same time have important security and other issues which confront us.”
“We have this business of the closure of the Benin Border, which seems to some people to be a big blow to the ECOWAS project.”
He argued that the overall interest of member states should override individual national interest.
“I believe that there are other considerations that we have to look at and examine to find a way so that we can live in this region in harmony and allow each one of us our national ambition to be fulfilled,” he added. Recall that Nigeria’s minister of foreign affairs, Mr. Geoffrey Onyeama, had a meeting with two Ghanaian ministers on the issue on Thursday, October 17 in Abuja. Ghana’s minister of foreign affairs and integration, Shirley Botchwey and her trade and industry counterpart, Alan Kyerematen, visited Onyeama at his office in the Nigerian capital. Onyeama told his visitors that no country was targeted in the border closure, adding that the move is a measure to address a particular issue.
