 The reopening of SEMET land border for vehicles importation has received approval from the federal government of Nigeria. The announcement was made by Ibrahim Musa, the director of road transport at the Ministry of Transportation during a economic community of West African states meeting that brought together officials from Nigeria and Benna Republic. The decision to reopen the border came in response to criticism lodged by threat forwarders who operate at the SEMET border. Meanwhile, the Custom Area Comptroller of the SEMET border command dairy nandy express concern over the decline in revenue for the service. It was also pointed out that the suspension of vehicles import through the land borders during previous administration had adversely affected the income of the people. We're now being joined by Joseph who's an operating officer of Jet Motors. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. Yes, please. So quickly, the closure of SEMET border followed the joint border security exercise which was ordered by the government, the den government of President Mohammed Buhari and the purpose for all of that was at securing Nigeria's land and maritime borders. Now let's not forget that we had several perimeters why this border was closed. So I ask you with the reopening of the border, do you think that we have secured a land and maritime borders? Yes, I believe that the land and maritime border are secure. I've been on issue. To me, there was no reason for the closure in the first place. We have our security agencies. We have all these agencies. If they function well, if they do their job, they have to secure the maritime and our borders. So by opening it, it's not going to compromise our security. I think it's a nice thing and it's a very good decision to reopen the border. No, I'd like to understand. Are you saying that you think or is that we have secured the borders? Because we also need to look at, I mean, there were several perimeters why the border was actually closed in the first place by the former administration which was led by President Mohammed Buhare. No, so I need to get you clearly. Are you saying that you are sure that this borders, I mean, all of this we have achieved the reason why we closed the borders in the first place have been achieved or you're thinking? Oh, what I said, there was no reason for closing the border in the first place. We have security challenges, fine. But closing the border will not solve the security challenges. Rather, we need the security operating to do their job by closing the border will not solve it in any way. Solving the security problem, border will not, closing the border will not solve it in any way. So rather than closing the border, we should have employed intelligence and again technology to solve the security problem. Closing the border altogether will not solve the security problem. To me, closing the border does not achieve that purpose. Rather, it only costs more actually and then costs a lot of other things that were not intended. Well, I would also like to look at it because like I rightly mentioned, there were several perimeters why the border was closed. And one of such is that the partial closure or closure of the Nigerian border with Ben Republic was due to massive smuggling activities, especially of rise, which the former president said threatens self-sufficiency, which was already attained by his administration in terms of agriculture. So I like to ask, you know, being that you are an expert, how self-sufficient are we in terms of rice production and agriculture, generally? Okay. Yes. Again, closing the border will not provide the food. What we need to do, we've invested in agriculture, especially rice, it can be, even legacy recently, they partner some to ensure that we have a lot of rice in the legals. I actually go to some part of the nuts. The rice production in the part of nuts in the last few years have been so encouraging. But again, coming back to close off the border, closing the border will not, in any way, rather than closing, use the security agent, use the costum, let the costum do their job. We have costum there. We have a lot of security agents managing the border. Let them do their job. If they do their job well, there's no need for closing any items that have been banned by government. This is the point where, I mean, for the want of time, let's quickly get to the other parts of the question. I hope you understand that we're looking at, you know, the reason why the border was closed in the first place. And we're also trying to understand if we have really achieved, you know, the peppers. Don't forget that government is a continuum. So we just, you know, expect that there's a continuation. We have achieved a certain result. But quickly, do you think that we have some economic and security implication for the reopening of the border? What are the benefits? No, there are a lot of benefits for opening the border. Number one, we should look at our ports. The congestion in our ports may do business in Nigeria, very cumbersome, not encouraging. And a lot of people find it difficult to do business. We have instances where you bring goods to Nigeria and your product, your product will enter tomorrow because you have to spend a lot of time getting them out of the port. And again, you pay more than what you cost to move items from Lagos to Kanu. You pay more than that to move them from Nigerian ports to let you, for example, because of the road condition, the transport, the traffic and everything. So we have, we patched all this in Nigerian ports. So by opening the border, it means the pressure will reduce on ports we have here. And it's going to make the economy boyatme. So by opening it again, to hear the customs and the revenue reduce, the revenue Nigerian are supposed to air, Nigerians are supposed to air. And from duty, also the teams. So we are going to have a lot of economic benefit by opening the border. Then let me just stop there. So are there specific benefits for the reopening of the border? What exactly are we expected? I mean, the previous governmental administration, which was led by President Mohammed Buhari, was very big on rise, self-sufficiency. But then again, I ask, are there specifics? Is anything that Nigerians should look forward to? Maybe I would give you a tip. Some people say that before this time, we had new cars come into Lagos. If you look at Lagos, you see several cars flying new cars. But you can't really see that again for a long time. So what does this really mean? Let me talk about cars. Because before now, the majority of the cars used in Nigeria come through semi-border, especially the one we call pre-use, which is popularly called Tukumbo. But the closer of the border is made that's very difficult. Now there is going to be part of the benefit of opening the border is that a lot of people will have access to that. And for us in this industry, because for us in this industry, we use Nigerian cars even before close or during close or even after close or, we still use Nigerian cars because we bring in new vehicles, SKGs and all these ones are done here. But never the less in general, there's going to be a lot of benefit because it's going to reduce the cost of bringing a vehicle. And when the cost is reduced, people will become more affordable. Meanwhile, the more contributed to the cost of high cost of planning in Nigeria is cost of do marriage. Sometimes you spend a lot of time before you clear your vehicle is enter do marriage at the terminal as well as the the the the the carrier that is the so by the time you look at you have been dominated from both ends. So and that we increase the cost of the vehicle. So with the opening of border is going to affect the price of vehicle is going to bring the vehicle the price of vehicle because you cannot play faster and easier to play cheaper off now. You're saying that we should look forward to a lot of Nigerians and Lagosians importing new cars as I mean to look forward to traffic is a lot of trouble. But we'll just leave it at that. And thank you so much for being part of this news this evening. Hello. Hope you enjoyed the news. Please do subscribe to our YouTube channel and don't forget to hit the notification button so you get notified about fresh news updates.