By Ade Jacobs
Business man and Stanbic IBTC Bank Plc founder Atedo Peterside, has slammed the federal government for granting waiver to Dangote Industries to export cement through the land borders despite the border closure put in place since 2019.
The government had shut the land borders citing insecurity and need to bolster the nation’s local food production, even though the policy has been widely criticised, for certain reasons, including the one that has now been raised by the banker.
Peterside said it was wrong for the government to single out Dangote among other businesses which have suffered serious setbacks due to the closure of Nigeria’s land borders to export.
He made the allegation amidst reports that BUA, owned by Abdul Samad Rabiu has also been granted similar waiver by the Buhari’s administration.
The managing director, Dangote Cement, Michel Puchercos, stirred up the hornets nest, after he told investors at a forum, on Monday, that the company has resumed cement export to Niger and Togo and some west African countries.
The former chairman of Stambic IBTC Bank said such opportunities should be extended to other exporters because “Allowing legitimate exporters and importers to move their goods across the border should be a no-brainer,” in the face of setbacks suffered by exporters in more than 14 months that the land borders have been shut.
According to him “Why refuse everybody else and allow only one company (Dangote)?This is why some of us argue that the Nigerian economy is rigged in favour of a handful of well-connected persons,” he said on his Twitter handle.
Since the land borders were shut in August 2019, the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN said earnings from the nation’s non-oil exports has declined to $320m, more than 11 per cent decline before the policy was announced.