Over 1.6 million bags of onions are traded informally to neighbouring countries of Ghana, Cote d’ Ivoire, Benin, Cameroon, Congo, and Niger Republic without being captured officially in Nigeria’s data.
Executive Director/CEO of the Nigeria Export promotion Council (NEPC), Nonye Ayeni, confirmed this yesterday, quoting National Onion Proders, Processors and Marketers Association of Nigeria (NOPPMAN).
The occasion was during a signing ceremony between NEPC and National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). The two government agencies signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that will facilitate data collection from informal cross border trade, according to the statement issued by Ndubueze Okeke, NEPC’s Head, Corporate Communications.
“Existing trade data primarily capture activities within the formal sector, offering limited visibility into informal export trade transactions, despite their significant volume and economic impact.
In 2024, formal export trade records indicate that 7.291 million metric tons of non-oil products valued at $5.456 billion, were exported from Nigeria.
This figure excludes informal export trade data”, she added. Informal cross-border trade, she pointed, is not just a distant, peripheral activity but real trade that fuels livelihoods, strengthens regional supply chains, and contributes significantly to our national and continental economic resilience.
Regrettably, she noted that these impressive achievements were not captured in the national export trade statistics, thus portending real implications for economic planning for the country.
According to her, “It weakens Nigeria’s voice in regional and global trade negotiations, it denies informal traders the recognition and support they need to thrive as well as diminishes Nigeria’s economic potential, especially the vital contributions of women, youth, and MSMEs”.
Ayeni explained that the collaboration between the Council and the NBS was borne out of the desire to correct the imbalance and capture the full spectrum of Nigeria’s export trade activity.
Responding, the Statistician General of the Federation, Prince Adeyemi Adeniran, noted that the meeting of key players from national and sub-national agencies, regional institutions, international development partners, and the organised private sector, reflects the strong spirit of collaboration required to address one of the most pressing challenges in Nigeria’s trade data architecture, capturing and integrating data from informal trade and trade in services into the national framework.
