Ever since last month’s military coup in Niger, trade with neighbouring Nigeria and other West African countries has virtually stopped. FRANCE 24’s senior correspondents Catherine Norris Trent and Cyril Payen report from the border in Nigeria’s northwestern Sokoto State, where only donkey carts, motorbikes and hawkers on foot are getting through to the other side.
In the remote town of Bodinga, in Nigeria’s Sokoto State, rows of cargo trucks can be seen stranded on both sides of the border. Many have been there since July 26, when the military junta in Niger overthrew President Mohamed Bazoum and trade between the poor, landlocked country and its West African neighbours was frozen.
“People will die! If they leave the border like this, people will die. There’s no work. From morning until night I have nothing to eat,” a desperate Nigerian truck driver tells FRANCE 24. He was on his way to a cement plant in Niger’s capital Niamey with a cargo of coal when the border closed and has spent the past two weeks sitting by his truck waiting.
Some tradesmen seem to get through, on foot, motorbikes and donkey carts. But their crossings are conditioned with bribes and black market trade has spiralled.
“Our only problem is the security personnel, we have to pay them bribes so they’ll let us pass,” says a man operating cargo drawn by donkeys. But the bulk of business is at a standstill.
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