Despite its dominance in regional trade, Nigeria faces structural and policy barriers that limit the full realisation of intra-ECOWAS commerce, including poor infrastructure, fragmented customs systems, and currency mismatches. The 2025 West Africa Economic Summit in Abuja provided a platform for dialogue and commitment, as experts and policymakers emphasised that digital identity, youth potential, and private sector partnerships are crucial to enhancing integration, writes SAMI TUNJI

When West African leaders gathered in Abuja for the inaugural West Africa Economic Summit in June 2025, the mood was neither celebratory nor ceremonial. Instead, it was frank and forward-looking. For Nigeria, the host country and economic giant of the region, the summit presented an opportunity to drive a deeper conversation about West Africa’s trade reality, a reality that, for all its potential, remains severely underwhelming.

Despite a combined GDP of over $750bn, a population nearing 450 million, and a shared historical identity forged through precolonial trade routes and modern treaties, the Economic Community of West African States is yet to reach its full potential for intra-regional trade as countries in the region trade more with outsiders than with each other.

Nigeria’s President, Bola Tinubu, acknowledged this during his opening remarks as ECOWAS Chair, stating, “Intra-regional trade remains under 10 per cent, a challenge we can no longer afford to ignore. The low trade is not due to a failure of will but a coordination failure. The global economy will not wait for West Africa to get its act together, and neither should we.”

The West Africa Economic Summit 2025 marked a key turning point. The deal room, set up within the summit grounds, aimed to match policy talk with investment interest. For Nigeria, hosting the event was not just a matter of prestige but a test of credibility. Tinubu noted that his administration intends to make future summits more implementation-focused, with trackable outcomes and investment frameworks aligned with the African Continental Free Trade Area. But the challenge remains: how will Nigeria translate summit rhetoric into day-to-day border reforms, customs modernisation, transport upgrades, and digital trust-building? The answer will determine whether West Africa continues to operate as a collection of economies in proximity, or evolves into a truly integrated economic bloc.

On paper, ECOWAS is structured as a free trade area with protocols guaranteeing free movement of people, goods, and services. But on the ground, the situation is much messier. Recent ECOWAS trade reports show that intra-regional trade hovers between 10 and 15 per cent of total trade volumes, a stark contrast to blocs like the European Union, where intra-regional trade exceeds 60 per cent. While informal trade networks boost this number unofficially, they do so in a way that often circumvents formal regulation, tax systems, and development planning.

Nigeria’s trade within ECOWAS is largely informal, unrecorded transactions across land borders at Seme, Jibia, or Illela, consisting of agricultural produce, petroleum products, clothing, and consumer goods. These are vital for livelihoods but rarely captured in economic data or tax revenue. Consequently, ECOWAS’ real economic integration is far shallower than its political frameworks suggest.

Nigeria’s dominance masks deeper structural problems

As West Africa’s biggest economy, Nigeria accounts for approximately 76 per cent of intra-ECOWAS trade, according to the Director-General of the National Identity Management Commission, Abisoye Coker-Odusote. While this figure might suggest regional economic dominance, there are some underlying issues constraining trade in the region.

Nigeria’s trade patterns remain export-orientated and resource-dependent. Crude oil, raw agricultural produce, and minerals dominate its export mix, while it imports machinery, electronics, and refined goods mostly from Europe, China, and India. The imbalance is clear, West African countries, including Nigeria, are largely resource suppliers and finished goods consumers.

This lopsided orientation hinders the development of regional value chains, which require not just the movement of goods, but interlinked industries, shared logistics, harmonised standards, and efficient dispute resolution mechanisms. President Tinubu called attention to this, stating that “the era of pit to port must end,” in reference to the continued export of raw minerals and resources without domestic or regional value addition.

Also, trade among ECOWAS member states continues to underperform, despite decades of regional integration efforts, repeated summit declarations, and formal trade protocols. While political leaders have signed numerous agreements aimed at enhancing intra-regional commerce, implementation has been slow and uneven. The reasons are structural and long-standing, and they continue to undermine progress on all fronts.

One of the most critical impediments is the region’s poor infrastructure. Although flagship projects like the Lagos-Abidjan Highway are frequently cited as symbols of regional ambition, the realities on the ground are far less optimistic. Roads linking major West African economies are often in poor condition, with dilapidated stretches, inadequate signage, and frequent bottlenecks. Delays at border crossings are commonplace, with long queues of trucks awaiting clearance due to limited facilities and bureaucratic inefficiencies. The region also suffers from a lack of functional railway systems and minimal investment in cargo handling infrastructure. Moving goods from Lagos to Bamako or Accra can take several days, or even weeks, depending on the season, road conditions, and customs efficiency. These long delays translate into higher logistics costs, reduced competitiveness, and lower trade volumes.

President Tinubu, in his opening address at the West Africa Economic Summit, acknowledged the infrastructure gap and stressed the need to move from “policy frameworks to practical implementation.” While he praised ongoing regional initiatives such as the West African Power Pool, he admitted that many of these efforts remain largely aspirational. Without efficient infrastructure, roads, ports, power grids, and railways, the idea of seamless trade within West Africa remains elusive.

Another major barrier is the fragmented customs environment across ECOWAS states. Despite the existence of ECOWAS protocols guaranteeing the free movement of goods, businesses still face numerous hurdles when trying to move products across borders. Each country has its own set of customs procedures, documentation requirements, and tariff regimes. These differences often lead to inconsistent interpretations, arbitrary charges, and prolonged inspection processes. Traders frequently complain about non-tariff barriers, such as divergent product standards, restrictive vehicle regulations, and politically motivated border closures. Such issues are not captured in formal agreements but remain persistent in practice, creating uncertainty and discouraging formal trade.

The complexity of moving goods from one ECOWAS country to another is further exacerbated by currency fragmentation. While countries in the West African Economic and Monetary Union share the CFA franc, which provides a degree of monetary stability and predictability, non-WAEMU countries, including Nigeria, Ghana, and Sierra Leone, operate independent currencies. This divergence introduces currency conversion costs and foreign exchange risks that traders must constantly navigate.

For Nigerian exporters, the volatile nature of the naira often makes pricing in regional markets difficult, particularly when selling to francophone countries. Traders are either forced to absorb currency-related losses or pass them on to consumers, reducing the competitiveness of their goods.

These structural weaknesses, poor infrastructure, fragmented customs regimes, and currency mismatches, have collectively contributed to the low levels of formal trade within the region. They not only increase the cost of doing business but also make regional integration appear more theoretical than real.

Digital identity as a trade enabler

One of the most insightful contributions at the summit came from the NIMC DG Coker-Odusote, who argued that trade requires more than roads and policies, it requires trust, and trust, increasingly, is digital.

She said, “One of the major obstacles to intra-regional trade is the difficulty individuals and small businesses face in verifying their identity across borders, leading to transactional friction, limited access to formal financial services, and lack of trust in cross-border operations.

“A unified, interoperable digital identity infrastructure will serve as the foundation upon which seamless trade, payment interoperability, and cross-border services can be built.”

Nigeria is leading in this space, with over 120 million citizens now enrolled under the National Identification Number. This figure dwarfs enrolment levels in other West African countries like Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, where digital identity systems are either nascent or fragmented.

But this leadership has yet to translate into interoperability. Most ECOWAS countries still lack shared standards or mutual recognition for digital IDs, meaning that a Nigerian entrepreneur may still face bureaucratic roadblocks when opening a business in Ivory Coast or setting up a payment gateway in Senegal.

Driving trade through informal economy

Nigeria’s informal economy, estimated at over 60 per cent of GDP, is both a source of resilience and a major limitation. While it allows trade to happen quickly, especially in border towns and markets, it also limits the government’s ability to capture value, enforce standards, or support small enterprises through credit and infrastructure.

Nigeria’s Foreign Minister, Ambassador Yusuf Tuggar, recognised this duality during his remarks, saying, “We know what economists call the informal sector finds ways to deliver what the market wants, bypassing borders and regulations when they are too slow and bureaucratic.”

Tuggar also noted that ignoring informal trade would be a mistake. Instead, governments should find ways to bring the informal into the formal, not through coercion, but by reducing red tape, digitising border procedures, and making formal trade more attractive through financing, security, and simplicity.

Youth demographics as a trade driver

Nigeria’s population is one of the youngest in the world, and this demographic weight is in fact a potential driver of regional economic integration. Tinubu was emphatic on this point: “Our region’s greatest asset is its youthful population. However, this demographic promise can quickly become a liability if not matched by investments in education, digital infrastructure, innovation, and productive enterprise.”

Nigeria’s creative economy, from music and film to fashion and tech startups, is already finding regional markets, especially in Ghana, Ivory Coast, and Senegal. However, the growth remains urban-centric and driven by a relatively small elite with access to education, broadband, and capital.

For this trend to benefit regional trade meaningfully, ECOWAS countries, including Nigeria, will need to invest in digital upskilling, youth entrepreneurship funds, regional talent mobility schemes, and payment systems that allow young creators and traders to sell across borders without complex processes or punitive fees.

The role of private sector

Nigeria’s private sector has the tools, talent, and scale to lead West African integration, but often lacks the enabling environment.

Companies like Interswitch, Flutterwave, and DHL Nigeria have piloted regional expansion strategies, but inconsistent customs laws, border closures, and licensing requirements create policy risk that undermines business confidence.

Tinubu acknowledged this, saying that governments must now play a supporting role while the private sector drives transformation: “Governments must provide the right environment, law, order, and market-friendly policies, while the private sector drives growth.”

It is not surprising that at the summit, the Minister of Industry, Trade, and Investment, Dr Jumoke Oduwole, unveiled a public-private initiative, the National Export Trading Company, being developed in partnership with the Nigeria Commodities Exchange, Afriksen Bank, and the Africa Trade and Distribution Company. The initiative aims to create a structured platform for Nigerian commodity exports, investing in aggregation, warehousing, and traceability to give farmers and MSMEs access to regional and global markets.

Experts have long advocated for harmonised standards across ECOWAS, urging Nigeria to push for port efficiency, energy connectivity, and single-window customs systems that reduce duplication.

To fulfil its role as the region’s anchor economy, Nigeria must stop treating regional trade as a diplomatic nicety and start treating it as a national economic priority. This means building infrastructure that extends beyond its borders, adopting digital tools that facilitate trust, and aligning its domestic reforms with regional trade protocols.

As President Tinubu said, “This is the new West African proposition. Let us make it real; let us make it bankable.” For Nigeria, the time for intent has long passed. The time for implementation is now.