THERE is a clamour down the tiny alleyways of Kano’s central market, in northern Nigeria, as vendors thrust fabrics at passers-by, promising the best colour, quality and price. Amid the racket, Alhaji Zakari sits cross-legged on his countertop, surrounded by materials marked “Made in Côte d’Ivoire”. “They’re not”, he says with a degree of honesty which can do little good for sales. “It’s imitation from China.”
Nigeria is awash with contraband. Chatham House, a British think-tank, reckons that at least 70% of trade between Africa’s biggest economy and its neighbours goes unrecorded. In 2010, the World Bank estimated that $2 billion worth of textiles like Mr Zakari’s are squirrelled into Nigeria every year.
One bootlegger supplying the latter is Adamu Muhammad, or so he gives his name. Like many others in the north, his syndicate brings goods in through Cotonou, Benin’s main port and commercial capital, then through Niger, and across Nigeria’s border. For a decade, convoys of up to 50 of the syndicate’s vehicles have rattled into Kano without obstruction, because bigwigs in the capital were paid to let them pass. A lucrative lorry-load may command a fee of up to 1m naira ($5,000 at official rates), Mr Muhammad says. In return, “Everyone is settled—from Niger to Kano.”
Sadly for his crew, that party is now over. Almost a year ago Nigeria acquired a stringent new president, Muhammadu Buhari, who has vowed to crack down on corruption. He put trusted counterparts at the top of misbehaving agencies such as the customs department, so it is now harder to get the sign-off for illegal deliveries. It seems to be working: Mr Muhammad says his friends must wait until the process can be “facilitated” again.
Mr Buhari has affected cross-border business in other ways, too. Nigeria’s economy, dependent on oil (the price of which has slumped since 2014) is in dire straits. In a bid to conserve foreign exchange, Mr Buhari has imposed harsh restrictions on imports of goods that he reckons could be made at home. As a result, the value of the dollar has soared on the black market, making it increasingly expensive to buy from abroad. In Benin, huge car dealerships used to do a roaring trade with Nigerians who smuggled vehicles through the bush. They are now eerily quiet. A peeved merchant of second-hand tyres says he is doing “zero business”.
Another part of the reason that goods are secreted into Nigeria is that shipping to Lagos is slow and bureaucratic. Customs officials ask businesses to produce 13 documents when they bring a shipment in, and nine on the way out. Corruption is rampant, and tariffs are high. Import bans on items including rice and carpets are supposed to protect local businesses, but instead push trade underground and make rich the cronies who win waivers. It is no coincidence that women cross into Nigeria carrying rice on their heads, or that Mr Muhammad also specialised in deliveries of cooking oil and pasta, the import of which is supposedly banned.
This hurts Nigeria’s economy (in 2010 the World Bank estimated annual revenue losses from smuggling of $200m). Despite the efforts to protect them only a handful of the 175 companies producing local fabric in the mid-1980s survive today.
The World Bank says that removing import bans would lift 4m Nigerians out of poverty. Unfortunately, Mr Buhari thinks that barriers will help shore up the currency and stimulate domestic production. Under his watch, foreign exchange has been banned for imports of 41 items, including glass and wheelbarrows.
History shows this will not work. At Benin’s Seme border post, an immigration official watches a motorbike laden with rice whizz past and declares, with a smile: “Smuggling is easy.”
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