BENIN ARRESTS FIVE NIGERIENS OVER ALLEGED FRAUDULENT ACCESS TO BORDER
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Five Nigeriens have been detained by authorities at a port in Benin on suspicion of entering the area fraudulently. This is the most recent incident in a tit-for-tat dispute between the West African countries.
The port of Seme-Kpodji, which has turned into a tense point in ties between the neighbors, is where the Nigeriens were detained late on Wednesday.
Niger, a landlocked country, exports its crude oil via a pipeline that connects its oilfields to a port on the Atlantic coast.
The border was closed by Benin due to regional sanctions placed on Niger following a coup in July, but it has now been reopened.
However, the military government of Niger has declined to mend their differences.
Benin announced on national television on Wednesday that it was lifting a “blockade” on Nigerien oil, saying “the tap on the Benin-Niger pipeline is unblocked again”.
Prosecutors also announced that five Nigeriens had been arrested at the port and accused at least two of being “agents” of the Niger junta.
“To justify this fraudulent entry onto the site, the interested parties indicated that they were all employees of WAPCO Niger whose badges they displayed,” financial crimes and terrorism prosecutor Elonm Mario Metonou said in a statement.
But “at least two of these people are Nigerien agents in the service of the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland (CNSP)” he said.
They “had fake WAPCO Niger employee badges made for the occasion”, the prosecutor added, referring to the Chinese company that operates the pipeline.
An investigation is ongoing, the statement said.
Niger says those arrested are the “deputy general director of WAPCO” Ibra Hadiza and “four engineers on a supervisory mission”.
Oil Minister Mahamane Moustapha Barke accused Benin of “violating agreements” on the transport of Niger’s crude via the Beninese port.
He said that under the accords, loading must be carried out in the presence of Beninese, Nigerien and Chinese officials.
But, he added, Benin authorities had “decided to prevent the Nigerien party from accessing the installations”.
“We cannot accept that these loadings take place under these conditions,” he said.
Niger’s military leader General Abdourahamane Tiani has given instructions to stop the Koulele pumping station in northeastern Niger if the five are not released, he said.
Niger accuses Benin of hosting “French bases” in the north of the country, with the aim of “training terrorists who must come and destabilise our country”.
Benin and France refute the accusations.
The closure of the border with Niger hurt Benin’s public revenues and increased the cost of food, prompting labour union protests over the high cost of living.
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