All registered Ghanaian trucks refused entry into Nigeria will return to Ghana soon, 3news.com can report.
This is on the orders of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.
Speaking in an interview with 3news.com’s Komla Klutse, a Deputy Minister of Trades and Industry, Carlos Ahenkorah, said within the next two weeks all the trucks will be driven back home.
“So, very soon we are going to see the return of these drivers,” he announced in the interview.
Hundreds of traders have been left stranded since August, 2019 when the government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria closed its borders over what was a move to stop the illegal smuggle of rice into the country.
Most traders from the West were left stranded at the Benin border at Seme.
Ghanaian traders among the stranded had called on the government to intervene despite that not yielding any positive result.
Nigeria, West Africa’s biggest economy, claimed it was saving its dwindling local rice market.
But after months of no breakthrough, Ghanaians stuck at the border are to return.
A compensation arrangement has been made for traders, who are counting their losses.
Speaking on TV3’s Midday Live on Saturday, February 22, General Secretary of the Greater Accra Region branch of the Ghana Union of Traders Association (GUTA) said the decision by Nigeria “is a clear indication that [they] are not ready to work with Ecowas protocols”.
He asked government to look inwards and protect Ghanaian businesses as Nigerian imports are just a fraction of what Ghana produces.