Three sisters, babies tied to their backs, advance under the midday sun to cross the border between the Nigerian state of Katsina, where they live, and Niger, where their father resides, in order to go to a wedding. This banal journey has, however, been officially prohibited to them since August 2023 and the sanctions imposed on Niamey by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) after the coup in Niger.
The road where trucks and cars continually passed by has been silent for almost seven months. “Motorcycle drivers avoid passing through the border post and take a detour. They charge too much, that’s why we walk,” explains Sa’adatu Sani, 30, who was unable to spend the 800 naira (0.46 euros) charged by the motorbike taxi to get there. from Jibia to the Nigerien village of Dan Issa, 18 km.
Like so many other Nigerians at the border, the three sisters continue to go to the other side either via the Jibia border post, where the authorities turn a blind eye to travelers on foot, or via parallel paths where they venture motorists and even certain traders, at the risk of having their goods seized by customs officers.
Double punishment
In Jibia, the Sunday market hums slowly. The crowds are much lower than before the border closed. “Nigerians came here to sell beans, dates, they bought our corn, our sorghum… Now we have to find other customers, when all we have known until now was cross-border trade,” laments Ibrahim Lawal Makiyayi, 53, who grows fruit and vegetables on the edge of the city, the capital of a district of nearly 300,000 inhabitants.
In this state considered the country’s grain basket, “we struggle to eat three meals a day,” complains Hamza Lawal, a truck driver whose activities have come to a standstill since the border closed. Nigeria, which shares 1,600 km of border with its neighbor, was until now one of Niger’s main trading partners, with 193 million dollars (178 million euros) in exports in 2022, according to the United Nations (electricity, tobacco, cement, etc.).
Since the border closure, it has been a double whammy for the local population, who have seen food prices explode under the combined effect of new movement restrictions and galloping inflation after the Nigerian president, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in office since May, implemented economic reforms that plunged the country into crisis. In January, inflation was close to 30%. Nigerians are crushed by the cost of living.
In Jibia, the price of a 100 kg bag of millet or maize has doubled in a year and currently sells for 60,000 naira (34.50 euros). The current crisis leads to pessimism by Hassan Issa, regional coordinator of Médecins sans frontières (MSF), who fears that malnutrition, already recurring here, will reach new heights this year. Especially since Ramadan is due to start in March, encouraging families to “quickly exhaust their reserves during this holiday period”.
Looting and bribery
In addition to trade difficulties, residents of this rural region face endemic insecurity that has worsened since the border closed. For years, armed groups called “bandits” have raged in the region, pillaging, confiscating land and killing in their path. “We bought our livestock from Nigeriens, we raised them and resold them to live, now we have almost nothing because the bandits are stealing our animals,” laments breeder Musa Abdullahu, 67.
With the border closed and their job and income prospects fading, some young Nigerians are being tempted into banditry. “People have nothing to do, they kill time, start using drugs. Poverty pushes you to the worst, to theft, to murder, to do anything to survive,” laments Sade Rabi’u, 57, traditional chief of Jibia.
But insecurity linked to bandits is not the only enemy of the inhabitants. “The closure of the border has created opportunities for bandits, but also for security agencies, who do not hesitate to confiscate goods and demand bribes,” laments Philip Ikita, project director for the NGO Mercy Corps in Katsina.
On the 50 km road which leads from Katsina, the capital of the eponymous state, to Jibia, checkpoints follow one another. Police officers, soldiers or self-proclaimed controllers shamelessly rob travelers. “Bandits must hide, operate in the shadows, while those who are supposed to enforce the law and protect citizens actually constitute the worst burden on trade and free movement,” Philip Ikita bitterly asserts.
