Smuggling is exploiting Nigeria's economic vulnerabilities while making them worse, driven by insecurity that keeps farmers from their land and currency weakness that encourages fuel diversion. The Nigeria Customs Service recorded 3,555 seizures worth N35.29 billion in duty-paid value during 2024, including 183,527 bags of rice. In 2025, Customs reported more than 2,500 seizures valued above N59 billion, the service said.
Insecurity in northern farming regions is a key driver. The World Food Programme reported in July 2026 that more than 17 million people across nine conflict-affected northern states faced crisis, emergency or catastrophic hunger. When violence prevents safe farming, supply gaps widen and cheaper smuggled rice finds eager buyers among families unable to afford domestic prices. Bismarck Rewane, chief executive of Financial Derivatives Company, told a Lagos Business School event that smuggling exploits price, policy and infrastructure differences to advance illegal trade.
Petrol diversion operates through different incentives. While subsidy removal reduced smuggling pressure, naira depreciation sustains it by making cross-border price differences profitable, the Customs Comptroller-General Bashir Adewale Adeniyi has explained. As the naira weakens, revenue earned in neighbouring currencies becomes worth more in naira, making buying locally and selling abroad attractive even if domestic petrol prices rise.
Compliant producers face direct harm. Farmers and rice millers contend with cheaper smuggled supplies that weaken sales and discourage investment in cultivation and processing. Customs also reported 65 vegetable-oil seizures in 2025 and 23 in 2026, with combined duty-paid value around N1.314 billion. Until farming becomes secure and lawful trade offers dependable returns, Nigeria will continue bearing collective costs from privately struck bargains at its borders.