A Lagos businessman, Umeh Ezeh, has sued President Muhammadu Buhari over the continued closure of the nation’s land borders.
The suit was filed on behalf of the businessman by a human rights lawyer, Emeka Odikpo, whose motion at the Federal High Court, Lagos, challenged the president’s powers to close Nigeria’s land borders.
It would be recalled that the president had, through the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS), closed the land borders in August 2019, thereby stopping importation and exportation of goods in and out of the country.
The Federal Government did not give a timeline for the re-opening of the borders.
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Odikpo, in the motion, asked the President to order the reopening of the borders as he neither the constitutional powers nor the approval of the National Assembly to do so.
He said the presidential directive was unreasonable and imposed great hardship on small-scale traders who, under the ECOWAS Treaty and the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, were entitled to trade freely on legitimate and lawful goods upon payment of due taxes and duties.
He added that the order should be set aside because the transportation of goods by air cargo was highly expensive and only ostentatious goods could be exported or imported through that mode of transportation.
He said more than 99 per cent of goods imported and exported among West African countries could not afford that.
He therefore asked the court to grant his client the relief that the first respondent (Nigerian Customs Service) acted unlawfully as it violated the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights and the revised treaty of the Economic Community of West African States.
