Ex-Ghanaian President Mahama asks Nigeria to reopen land borders

A former Ghanaian President John Mahama has called on Nigeria leadership reopening her land borders, saying economies of many smaller African countries are being strangulated by the continued closure.

Mahama said Nigeria as the biggest economy in the continent should not lose sight of its position and reconsider her decision on the continue border closure.

Nigeria shut her land borders last month in its efforts to curb smuggling across the land frontiers and protect local production of rice.

Since the closure of the border, many of Nigeria’s neighbours have initiated moves to get the country to reopen the border because of the economic effects on economic activities across the west coast.

Mahama spoke at 7th annual lecture series of RealNews Magazine, themed “Beyond Politics: an economic narrative for West Africa.“

“I want to call on the Nigerian government to, in the overall interest of our people, open its borders so that commercial activities on the sub-region can resume,” the ex-Ghanaian president said.

He said leaders must provide leadership that would jumpstart the economic prosperity of their respective nations, noting that youths in the continent are becoming dissatisfied with merely voting every four years without a commensurate growth or impact of governance.

Mahama said West Africa is a resource rich sub-region blessed with bountiful minerals and natural commodities, adding that the region stands out on the global map.

“To cite a few examples, Guinea has an estimated 25% of the world’s known bauxite reserves, which translates to some 1.8 billion metric tons, Ghana, together with Cote d’Ivoire is responsible for about 65% of the world’s cocoa beans used to produce cocoa products across the globe. Our two countries also have oil, and Ghana is already exploring this resource, which is contributing to our GDP. According to World Bank reports, Ghana is Africa’s largest producer of gold, overtaking South Africa and the 6th largest in the world.

“Nigeria is Africa’s largest producer of oil and gas and the 6th largest in the world, producing an estimated 2.5 million barrels of crude oil a day. Indeed, each of the 16 nations of West Africa are either rich in agriculture, precious minerals like gold and diamonds, or oil and gas. We also have arable land that can feed a huge part of the whole world.”

He said the sub-region is home to a population of 400 million, about half of which can be found in Nigeria, a country which according to AfDB African Economic outlook contributes nearly 70% of the regions GDP.

Mahama said for West Africa to leverage maximally and benefit from its demographic size, there is need for leaders to leapfrog its economic development by adopting innovation to increase productivity and free more people from back-breaking labour.

“We must grow our SMEs and blue-collar labour. SMEs and middle-level blue-collar manpower have been the main drivers of growth in middle income Latin American and Asian economies. This means that our educational curriculum must be rejigged to produce skilled human resources to drive the real sector.”

He, however, noted that though democracy has engendered relative peace and has produced increased popular participation, which is conducive for investment and creativity, the over two decades of democratic journey has not translated to improvement in the human development index.

He challenged African leaders to provide leadership that will continue to let the people have faith in the democratic process and begin to promote a new economic narrative that should support the growth of each member nation of the ECOWAS sub-region.