Traditional rulers and residents
of border communities in Ogun State on Thursday, cried out to President
Muhammadu Buhari, over their worsening plights with the closure of the borders,
saying “the policy is killing” them.
Six traditional rulers, including
the Onihunbo of Ihunbo Kingdom, Oba Joseph Adesiyan; a historian; Prof. Anthony
Asiwaju, and scores of residents from over a dozen communities, said evacuation
of farm produce, and poultry products by local farmers have become impossible as
overzealous border task force involved in the ‘Operation Swift Response’
allegedly harass them under the guise that farm produce were smuggled items.
Addressing a press conference in
Abeokuta, the state capital, the leaders of the border communities under the
aegis of Ogun West Consultative Forum (OWECOF) and other Stakeholders, urged
President Muhammadu Buhari to review the border closure and reduce the hardship
they face daily.
The traditional rulers urged
Buhari to also rescind his order banning supply of petroleum products within
20kilometres radius of the border.
They lamented that men of the
Nigeria Customs Service (NSC) have made life more miserable for them, all in
the name of upholding the presidential ban order on petroleum.
OWECOF’s spokesperson and a
Professor of African Comparative History and Borderland Studies, Anthony
Asiwaju, alleged that the order, prohibiting petroleum movement by 20
kilometers to border communities, has brought untoward economic hardship to the
innocent Nigerians living in the areas who have nothing to do with economic
sabotage popularly referred to as smuggling.
According to Asiwaju, the
presidential order has criminalized the entire law abiding people of Yewa–Awori
land of Ogun West Senatorial district, who are principally affected by the
policy.
He explained that the order is
also having an economic hardship on the people of the area as well as its
attendant loss of lives.
“With the regular suffering of
infrastructural deprivation and political marginalisation, the people of the
territorial authorities and communities in border areas of Ogun State are now
having to stand a wide range of human abuses,” he said.
The Professor noted that it is
inappropriate to “use a unit to judge the whole.”
OWECOF also declared that the
federal government’s reasons advanced for closing the borders and also
restricting petroleum movement by 20 kilometers to the border were serious
indictment on the ability of the NCS officials at effectively policing the
Nigerian borders and as such, should not be blamed on residents of the border
communities.
The people, however, appealed to
the federal government to call the security operatives enforcing the border
closure and ban on petroleum to order before they succeed in eradicating them
all.
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