In 2017, Nigeria made a failed attempt at exporting yam to the United States of America. It was part of the national response to the recession crisis of 2016. Audu Ogbeh, the then minister of agriculture, publicly announced that the USA rejected Nigeria’s yam exports due to the poor quality of the tubers.

A few days after the international embarrassment, Gaza Jonathan, a member of the then House of Representatives, called the minister out for illegality. According to him, exporting yam from Nigeria was against the law, and he was right.

The Export Prohibition Act of 1989, introduced under the Ibrahim Babangida regime, bans the export of yam. But the list of contraband exports was longer than that. Aside from yam, the act prohibited the export of beans, cassava tubers, maize, rice, yam tubers and their derivatives. The act also prohibited the export of imported food.

What is more interesting, however, is the punishment stipulated by the legislation for exporting these food items. According to the act, the punishment for exporting these items could be as light as a fine or as severe as a life imprisonment sentence.

Below is what the legislation reads as punishments for exporting any of the prohibited items:

“Any person who takes causes to be taken induces any other person to take or attempts to take out of Nigeria any of the goods specified in the Schedule to this Act shall be guilty of an offense and liable on conviction to imprisonment for life.”

“In addition to the penalty specified in subsection (1) of this section

• the goods, as well as any vehicle, vessel, aircraft, or other things whatsoever used in connection with the exportation; and
• all the assets, movable or immovable, including motor vehicles, of any person convicted of the offense, shall be forfeited to the Federal Government.
• Any customs officer or other person who aids counsels procures or conspires with any person to commit an offense under this section, shall be guilty of an offense and liable on conviction to the same punishment as prescribed for the offense under subsection (1) of this section. (4) Any offense committed under this Act shall be triable by the Federal High Court.”

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NIGERIANS HAVE BEEN CLAMOURING FOR A REPEAL

Since Nigeria was suffering the backlash of a major recession in 2017, one would assume that anti-export laws like the Export Prohibition Act would be repealed with urgency. However, it took more than the recession or drama between the international community, the legislature and the federal government to effect any changes to this legislation.

It also took consistent clamour for a repeal of the act by stakeholders in the agricultural sector. In 2019, for instance, Solomon Irtwange, the President of the National Association of Yam Farmers, Processors, and Marketers, made several appeals to the federal government to repeal the legislation.

Irtwange, who also doubled as the president of the Technical Committee on Nigeria Yam Export Programme, lamented how the act not only hindered the nation’s attempt at diversification but was also affecting Nigeria’s chances at competing in the international market.

“Nigeria yam is, therefore, being branded as Ghana yam. This is a minus for Nigeria. The Export Prohibition Act of 1989 is the issue, but we have made a lot of efforts trying to advocate to relevant government agencies, ministries and the National Assembly that if we want to diversify this economy, that law has to go,” said Irtwange.

Conversations about the prohibition and the implications on production and revenue in Nigeria were in the media between 2017 and 2022. Media houses like The PUNCH and Tribune wrote editorial pieces addressing the limitations to the country’s revenue sources as a result of the Exhibition Prohibition Act.

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THE NIGERIAN SENATE REPEALED THE ACT, BUT THE LAW STILL HOLDS

In what could be considered a stroke of victory, the Senate passed the bill to repeal the 1989 Export Prohibition Act on December 20, 2022. The bill had been sponsored in 2019 by Sabo Nakudu Mohammed, who was representing Jigawa South West District.

But the passage of this bill in the Senate is not enough to make it law. For context, a bill has to be passed by both arms of the legislature and signed by the president before it becomes law in Nigeria.

However, according to the bill tracker of the National Assembly as a collective, the bill has not passed a second reading yet. This suggests two possibilities. One, the Senate has not sent the bill to the House of Representatives for concurrence. Secondly, the House of Representatives has received the bill but has done nothing about it.

Most importantly, FIJ obtained a factsheet of all the bills signed into law under the Buhari administration in his eight years of presidency. However, the bill to repeal the Export Prohibition Act is not on this list.

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THE LAW IS COSTING THE NATION CONSIDERABLE REVENUE

Irtwange, in an interview with Business Day in November 2023, offered a glimpse into how a rash decision made 40 years ago is haunting the agro-economy of the country several decades later.

“We had an international NGO that wanted to support yam farmers in promoting the export of yam flour a few years ago, but they withdrew as soon as they learned of the 1989 Export Prohibition Act,” he said.

FIJ gathered, for instance, that the combined global market value for all the food commodities was as high as $560 billion as of 2023. As of 2021, Nigeria was the largest producer of cassava in the world, with an output of about 6 million metric tonnes. The National Bureau of Statistics also pegs Nigeria as the largest producer of yam. In 2021 alone, the country produced 50.4 million metric tonnes of yam.

A 2023 report by Thisday quoted Kingsley Nwokoma, an industry stakeholder, as saying that Nigeria was losing over $1 billion annually because it did not certify these agricultural products for export.

Despite Nigeria’s over-reliance on oil, recent data has suggested that the non-oil sector contributes significantly to the gross domestic product of the country. In Q4 2023, for instance, the non-oil sector contributed 95.30 percent to the country’s GDP.

Policy discussions by stakeholders suggest that Nigeria recognises the relevance of diversification. However, with legislation like this in place, policy decisions towards diversification may not translate to any revenue for the nation.