Inside Nigeria’s Border Towns: Trade, Survival, and the Hidden Cost of Life at the Edge

Sean
Nov 13
4 min read

Nigeria’s border towns reveal a clear contradiction — federal trade policy says one thing, but everyday life at the border shows a completely different reality of extortion, inflation, smuggling, and insecurity.

This piece breaks down that gap.

Here’s the gist: Nigeria’s border towns are running a parallel economy — one defined more by survival than by policy. The official story talks about bilateral agreements and trade reopening; the street-level reality tells something else entirely.

From Seme in the southwest to Jibiya in the far north, border communities are living through a cycle of extortion, hunger, stalled trade, and insecurity that doesn’t match the glossy government narratives. If we’re being honest, the people at the border feel forgotten.

Nigeria’s Border Towns: Extortion, Smuggling and the Human Cost of Closed Borders

Seme: Numbers and the Price of Passage

At Seme, customs officials point to the figures — 306,000 metric tons of goods and ₦77.9 billion in exports processed in 2024. On paper, it looks like success. On the road, traders live a different truth. The Seme–Mile 2 axis is a marathon of checkpoints, some official, many not.

A Badagry businessman who regularly moves goods across the gate puts it bluntly: “If you buy something for ₦1,000 in Benin, you’ll land in Lagos having paid ₦3,000 in bribes.”

An investigation counted nearly 200 checkpoints along this stretch, manned by customs, police, immigration and sundry security outfits. Customs says it has reduced posts; traders say the unofficial toll collectors still dominate.

The result is immediate and brutal: costs are inflated before goods reach the market, movement slows, and Beninese traders sometimes avoid Nigeria altogether.

Northern Borders: A Collapse of Livelihoods

In the north the damage is deeper and more visible. Nigeria’s border with Niger closed after the July 2023 coup and, although it officially reopened in March 2024, the livelihoods it once supported were already broken.

In Jibiya, Katsina, people say life “collapsed.” A laundryman who once earned ₦5,000–₦6,000 a day now struggles to make ₦1,000. Drivers and keke riders who moved people and goods across the border now sit under trees hoping for a fare; ₦200 per trip is considered lucky.

Weekly markets that used to host thousands of vendors are shadows of themselves; inflation, which peaked near 30% in early 2024, has pushed staples out of reach. Households ration meals and sometimes survive on a single dish a day.

Smuggling as Survival

When formal trade chokes, informal systems take over. Across Illela, Kongolam and Jibiya, young Nigerians ferry goods along bush paths locals call hanya barawo — the “thief’s road.” In Kongolam, teenagers push wheelbarrows for about ₦2,500 a trip, hauling rice, groundnut oil and canned food out of Nigeria and bringing maize, beans, livestock and textiles back in. Security patrols exist, but bribery keeps these routes functional; in some places banditry compounds the risk — camel herders near Illela report losing more than 400 animals. Informal trade has become the de facto logistics system because when livelihoods are at stake, survival trumps regulation.

Fuel and the Taraba–Adamawa Corridor

Fuel is a particularly combustible example. The removal of the petrol subsidy in 2023 narrowed the price gap with neighbours, but demand from Cameroon stayed high and black-market flows surged. By late 2024 Nigeria had become a major informal fuel supplier to Cameroon. The federal response — Operation Whirlwind — saw over 34,000 litres seized in a March 2025 raid, but the crackdown had consequences: about 1,800 independent gas stations in Adamawa and Taraba shut down in protest after tankers were confiscated, and black-market prices in Yola spiked to roughly ₦1,400 per litre, nearly double the pump price. Cameroonians still cross back with everyday items — palm oil, livestock and shoes — underlining how porous borders remain when demand exists on both sides.

Security: The Heaviest Tax

Security is the gravest tax these towns pay. From the northwest to the northeast, terrorist groups and criminal gangs target supply chains and rural communities. Between September and November 2024 at least 29 armed ambushes were recorded along border routes toward Cameroon. Rustlers strip villages near Jibia of cattle meant for export, leaving families destitute. Even checkpoints that are supposed to protect often act like paywalls: people report negotiating bribes instead of receiving protection.

A Katsina-based humanitarian worker captures it: “The people who are supposed to protect us are the ones draining us.”

Once trust dissolves, trade grinds to a halt and crime fills the vacuum.

Policy Moves and Grassroots Skepticism

Policy gestures exist — the Niger border was reopened in early 2024, Lagos signed a Nigeria–Benin trade agreement, and a Chinese-backed livestock hub is planned at Maigatari — but these meet local skepticism.

As a former Katsina governor observed, “People keep coming in and out with goods… borders should be open.”

His point was practical: closures rarely stop movement; they only make it riskier and more exploitative. Infrastructure bottlenecks, scanning delays and heavy-handed security mean that open borders on paper often translate into closed opportunities on the ground.

Nigeria's Border Towns Conclusion: Promise, If the Foundations Change

Border towns are entrepreneurial and resilient. They connect Nigeria to West and Central Africa and adapt in ways statistics miss. The potential for better corridors, infrastructure, and partnerships is real. But until extortion ends, insecurity is addressed and trade becomes safer and consistent, the promise will remain just that — a promise.