THE IMPACTS IMPLICATION OF NIGERIA BORDER CLOSURE ON REGIONAL ECONOMIC COOPERATION AND INTEGRATION IN WEST AFRICA 2019-2022

African continent comprises of fifty-four independent countries, and is divided into North, East, Southern and West Africa. The countries of West Africa comprise of such countries as: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Chad, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo. To exist in a very favorable economic situation, these West African countries need to promote cooperation and integration so as to facilitate exchange of goods and services, since no country of the world is an island and self-sufficient. However, issues such as border closure which has been a trend in Africa has been a hindrance to this goal. In October 2019, Nigeria’s federal government led by President Muhammadu Buhari announced that Nigeria had closed its borders. This decision and action brought about some certain issues beyond the tolerance of Nigeria’s federal government, and its impacts implications on regional economic cooperation and integration in West Africa is now the focus of this study. The aim and objectives of this study is therefore to examine the impacts implications of Nigeria’s border closure on the regional economic cooperation and integration in West Africa. Historical research design was adopted with realism as a theoretical framework while the method of data analysis is simple frequency distribution table, and also content analysis. In conclusion, the study discovered that border closure did much harm on economic cooperation and integration in West Africa and recommended the need for governments in West Africa to upgrade their institutions so as to boost investment in the areas of productive activities.