The federal government has revealed that the ban on certain commodities will remain in place despite the recent reopening of the land borders.
The minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola announced at an interactive session with newsmen in Ilesa that rice and poultry products are still prohibited from entering the country’s borders.
He said the federal government in a bid to ensure proper documentation of movement in and out of the country and to ensure that no one enters the country with a hidden identity, Migration Information Data Analysis System (MINDARS) was created.
According to the minister, “We have deployed technology which is called MINDARS – Migration Information Data Analysis System in the four borders we reopened.
“MINDARS will register whoever passes, either a Nigerian or non-Nigerian across our borders and once you have registered, it is for life. It will take biometric, photographs, names, and other details in a central database. Nobody can now be anonymous through our border posts.”
Aregbesola further explained that the reopening of borders was to allow the ease of movement of people, goods and services originating from the region of West Africa for trade purposes.
He said, “Items that we banned are foreign items. Parboiled rice is only eaten in Nigeria in the entire West of Africa. The border reopening does not in any way affect the banned items. Like poultry, rice and other contraband such as psychotropic drugs, arms and ammunition, money laundering and others they are criminal.”
