Many had asked me specifically why Nigeria was not on the list of African countries heavily dependent on grain imports from Russia and Ukraine. There are two reasons. The first is that Nigeria has a more diversified import base. Nigeria imports more wheat from Lithuania, Latvia, and the United States than it imports from Russia and Ukraine.
Second, Nigeria has no reliable import data. Due to excessive rates, corruption, and extreme bottlenecks at the ports, most imports meant for Nigeria go to Benin Republic, Togo, and Cameroun and are later trucked/smuggled into Nigeria using the vast and unpoliceable land borders with its neighbours. Let me give a quick example.
In 2015, the Nigerian government effectively banned the importation of rice, placing a discouraging 70 percent tariff. The reality though was that as legal importation to Nigeria drops drastically, neighbouring countries such as Benin, Cameroun, Niger, and others have seen their parboiled rice imports increase exponentially. Ironically, these countries mostly consume white rice (another variant of the staple), whereas they import more parboiled rice (which Nigerians consume) and, which, considering their population, could last them for decades. However, they continue to import parboiled rice every year while legal imports continue to decline in Nigeria as smuggling increases exponentially.
Christopher Akor