Misclassification, under declaration and poor documentation of exports have resulted in Nigeria losing $8 billion annually in export of solid minerals.

According to a report by the Sea Empowerment and Research Centre (SEREC), despite Nigeria’s yearly cargo throughput exceeding 1.5 billion metric tonnes, including crude oil exports, non-oil exports still account for less than 10 per cent of total export earnings.

The report also noted that Nigeria was losing about $10 billion annually to maritime exploitation, entrenched cartels, systematic inefficiencies and extraction of national wealth through poorly governed export systems and leakages, adding other factors contributing to the losses as weak industrial linkages, trade distortions, policy inconsistencies, resources exploitation by external opportunism and internal complicity.

It also pointed to opaque resource-backed financing structures, weak monitoring of export volumes and valuation, domestic institutional fragility and limited enforcement of global best practices as critical vulnerabilities.

According to the report titled: “Port of plenty, pipelines of loss: A national reawakening call on maritime-enabled resource leakages,” Nigeria’s maritime sector designed as the engine room of trade and economic expansion has increasingly become a critical channel for value erosion, while the ports had evolved into pipelines of economic loss.

It also highlighted: “Despite abundant deposits of iron ore, gypsum, other solid minerals and crude oil reserves, the country continues to import refined petroleum products and finished goods at high cost, while the steel industry struggles.

“Frequent policy shifts and overlapping regulatory mandates have created systemic loopholes, encouraged rent-seeking behaviour and enabled insider exploitation. This environment of uncertainty has evolved into a tool for exploitation rather than governance.”

It noted that this had created a cycle in which raw materials are exported at low value, while finished goods were imported at high cost, leading to an estimated $15 billion to $20 billion yearly opportunity losses to lack of value addition.

The report stressed that these practices also resulted in weakened foreign exchange inflows, distort national trade data and deprive government of critical revenue, adding that the situation was exacerbated by weak institutional oversight in Nigeria’s engagements with foreign partners and extractive vulnerabilities, including industrial economies such as China.