NCS says women dominate informal border trade

The Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service, Adewale Adeniyi, on Friday disclosed that 22 per cent of the Republic of Benin’s informal exports are destined for Nigeria. He also said women constitute about 70 per cent of informal cross-border trade.

Adeniyi disclosed this at the Seme-Krake Border while speaking during a Joint Nigeria-Benin Republic One Stop Border Post Assessment. According to him, informal trade is estimated to account for a fifth of economic activity in Nigeria and a far higher share in Benin.

“I want to turn now to a group of people who are easy to overlook at a ceremony of this kind, and who are the majority of those who actually use this border. Across Africa, women make up more than 70 per cent of those engaged in informal cross-border trade.

“In this corridor, the pattern is pronounced. Some 22 per cent of Benin’s informal exports are destined for Nigeria. Informal trade is estimated to account for a fifth of economic activity in Nigeria and a far higher share in Benin,” Adeniyi stated.

He emphasised that studies show that a woman trading across a West African border typically supports more than three children and a similar number of other dependents from that trade. “These are household economies, not marginal transactions,” he said.

The CGC mentioned that women on the corridor report harassment, extortion and delay as ordinary features of crossing. “The studies also tell us something less comfortable. Women on this corridor report harassment, extortion and delay as ordinary features of crossing.”

“Where a border is slow, opaque or intimidating, the trader with the least capacity to absorb cost is the one driven around it, and once she is driven around it, we lose her twice: she loses the protection of the law, and the state loses the revenue,” the CGC stated.

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Adeniyi highlighted that the line between formal and informal trade is very often nothing more than whether the formal route was usable. He announced that the service is launching a dedicated facility to cater for the special needs of women traders on the corridor.

Adeniyi added that the purpose of the facility is to bring women into the formal system on terms they can actually meet: “simplified procedures for small consignments, clear published information in the languages traders speak, accessible points of contact, protection against informal demands, and a channel through which a woman who is badly treated at this border can be heard and answered. I invite you to join me in the commissioning if your time permits.”

The NCS boss maintained that functional economic integration between Nigeria and Benin would not be measured by the number of agreements signed, nor by the quality of the buildings commissioned, nor by the warmth of ceremonies.

“It will be measured by whether a truck carrying goods from Cotonou to Lagos clears this post once instead of twice. By whether a woman with a load of goods crosses in an hour rather than a day. By whether an officer on this side can see what an officer on that side is looking at.”

He pointed out that those are the tests, and they are all technical, “and all of them are within our power to pass.”

“This is also the problem we seek to solve when we document these milestones with our counterparts from Cameroon (Benin and Nigeria) in Abuja in November 2026 at the opening of the CPAT 2026,” he concluded.

Earlier, the Director General of Customs Administration of the Republic, Col. Raouf Malehossou Aboudou, restated his country’s commitment to boost ease of doing business at the borders.