Traders turn smugglers, two years after Sahel countries exit ECOWAS

Traders turn smugglers, two years after Sahel countries exit ECOWAS 

By Mohammed Dahiru Lawal 

Sama’ila Zubairu [not his real name], a grain trader from Dan Issa, a small agrarian village south of Niger Republic, felt a chill the first time he saw armed men on motorbikes, weaving through dusty paths near the Maradi border in Niger and hauling sacks of maize under the cover of dusk. 

Two years ago, the formal trade routes would have been used to move grains and other commodities profitably, but today, traders like him avoid those formal routes. Instead, they prefer to wait for the cover of darkness before embarking on the risky and strenuous journey through the dreaded Sahelian corridors that are off the radar of local authorities in the Niger Republic.

“We cannot use the old routes without paying too much. Now everything goes through the bush where we either pay more or less but with a guarantee of faster delivery,” he said.

Hundreds of kilometres away at the Ilela-Konni border, Bashar Ibrahim is facing a different version of the same crisis. A livestock trader whose family has moved animals across the Sahel for generations, he says the trade that once defined his livelihood is collapsing.

“Someone who used to supply me 500 animals now barely brings 50,” he lamented. “People are afraid of seizures, of attacks, of losing everything.” 

Since the withdrawal of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to form the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), regional trade has not collapsed, but it has been fundamentally reshaped. 

Formal trade corridors have weakened under the weight of new tariffs, export restrictions and political uncertainty, but the movement of goods has not stopped. Instead, it has shifted into informal channels, mostly through smuggling, which is creating a parallel economy that is harder to regulate and more expensive to operate, with the costs ultimately borne by ordinary people. 

“Exiting the regional bloc granted political autonomy but also removed access to West African financial safety nets, regional trade guarantees and investor confidence anchored in established ECOWAS mechanisms,” said Sadiq Aliyu, Deputy Director and Head of Public Relations, Nigeria Export Promotion Council (NEPC). 

Export bans introduced in the AES countries to protect domestic markets and encourage local value addition have instead trapped commodities within their borders, while the introduction of a 0.5 percent levy on ECOWAS-related goods has added another layer of cost to an already strained system. The result is a fragmented market in which goods are harder to move, more expensive to trade, and less accessible to those who need them most.

“Wealthy traders usually afford the tariffs on their goods, while others converge on a single vehicle to contribute what they can risk to the passage,” said Lawali Maradi, acting Secretary, Traders Association of Niger. “Others who cannot afford it at all follow illegal ways and become targets of law enforcement agencies.” 

At the Nigeria-Niger border near Maradi, traders along the Maradi-Katsina corridor, which is roughly a 200 to 250 kilometre journey, say that moving a single truck of maize from northern Nigeria into southern Niger markets now requires navigating more than a dozen informal checkpoints, each with its own demands. What once took a day can now take three days, doubling transport costs and pushing food prices higher across the Niger Republic.

Nigeria exports maize and other grains to Niger, serving as a primary source for Niger’s dry grain imports and often accounting for 60 to 70 percent of the regional supply. Official data suggest that between 50,000 and 75,000 tons of maize are exported annually, though unrecorded cross-border trade is likely far higher.

In parts of Mali and Burkina Faso, efforts to promote local processing have collided with limited industrial capacity, leaving surpluses of raw commodities without viable export markets. Analysts say this has reduced farmer incomes without achieving the intended industrial growth. In Niger, a country that relies heavily on imports for food security, disruptions to established supply corridors have intensified dependence on informal networks, undermining price stability and supply reliability.

“What emerges from this shifting landscape is a system under strain, adapting in real time to constraints imposed by policy, politics and geography,” said Aliyu.

Across the central Sahel, food markets are fragmenting under pressure from insecurity and trade disruptions. In Niger, a net importer of key staples, dependence on cross-border supplies – particularly grains from Nigeria – has deepened vulnerabilities as formal corridors weaken.

In some regions of Burkina Faso affected by insecurity, including Gayéri, Kompienga and Sebba, prices of staple foods have surged to over 100% compared to the five-year average. By contrast, in relatively stable urban markets such as Ouagadougou, the same commodities are typically 40–60% above average, reflecting uneven market conditions and limited corridor access.

Meanwhile, in northern Nigeria’s border corridors such as Illela and Jibiya, traders report rising transport costs and delays due to informal checkpoints and policy restrictions, further constraining the flow of food into neighbouring Sahelian markets. Together, these pressures are creating a patchwork of price instability across the region, where location increasingly determines who can access affordable food.

Rising food inflation and trade deficits

The most measurable economic impact of the rupture is reflected in food prices.

World Bank food inflation datasets show that Niger experienced a major food price shock between mid 2023 and mid 2024, with inflation exceeding 40 percent before cooling in 2025 and rising again through 2026. Mali experienced an extreme spike in 2022, with food inflation reaching roughly 60 percent, followed by volatility and renewed increases in 2024 to date. Burkina Faso recorded a steady rise through 2021, a sharp spike in 2022, a partial correction in 2023, and renewed pressure into early 2025 and beyond. 

The spikes are driven by a combination of persistent insecurity, restricted access to markets, reduced local production, and growing reliance on purchases as household stocks decline. 

Famine Early Warning Systems Network data indicate that imported rice prices in Niger were significantly higher in 2024 compared to previous years. Maize prices were 29 to 32 percent above five-year averages from 2023 to 2024, driven by border closures, insecurity and supply constraints. In Mali’s Gao market, sorghum recorded a 16.67 percent month on month increase during one monitoring period.

The withdrawal from ECOWAS had technical trade consequences. The ECOWAS Common External Tariff no longer applies to AES imports. Instead, Most Favoured Nation rates under World Trade Organization rules govern trade with non-ECOWAS partners. The removal of the Common External Tariff (CET) introduced adjustment costs and tariff uncertainty.

Despite export bans and levies, the AES remains dependent on imports of processed staples such as vegetable oil, sugar and rice.

UN Trade and Development data confirm that Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso have consistently run trade deficits from 2005 through 2024. Burkina Faso’s trade openness means roughly five percent of its economy flows outward annually to finance imports. Mali and Niger display similar structural patterns.

“High trade openness combined with persistent deficits creates external vulnerability. When borders close or currency pressures mount, domestic markets absorb the shock,” explains Alhaji Tujur Maude, an official of the Traders Association in Sokoto, Nigeria. 

Import spikes, geopolitical realignment

Trade Map data show that Niger’s imports rose sharply in 2022, moderated in 2023 and contracted significantly in 2024. The 2022 spike aligns with global commodity inflation and post pandemic demand recovery. The contraction corresponds with sanctions, currency pressure and political realignment.

Mali and Burkina Faso exhibited similar volatility in import flows during this period.

Trade records indicate a decline in Burkina Faso’s exports to France and the United Kingdom in 2025. Mali and Niger have also experienced reductions in certain European trade flows. This reflects political repositioning and shifting diplomatic relationships.

However, reduced trade with France and the United Kingdom has not eliminated underlying trade deficits. Instead, trade patterns have been redirected.

Trade Map analysis shows China emerging as a dominant supplier to Niger. Across the Sahel, Chinese exports include machinery, manufactured goods and industrial inputs critical for infrastructure and mining.

Russia’s role is visible in security cooperation and wheat trade. The disruption of Black Sea exports underscored the vulnerability of Sahelian food systems to global grain markets.

As formal trade routes tightened, informal channels expanded. Traders increasingly reroute goods to avoid costs and delays. Informal trade cushions supply disruptions but reduces state revenue and weakens transparency.

This dynamic explains why official import statistics may show contraction while markets remain supplied. Goods continue to move, but outside formal reporting systems.

Stuck without trade partners

Niger’s exports to Nigeria, which previously accounted for 35.4% of its exports by land in 2022, are now restricted. Those restrictions apply to all three AES countries and the outcomes are largely the same.

“This includes a mix of national export bans by the AES, withdrawal from ECOWAS trade protocols and loss of access to ECOWAS preferential tariffs,” said Aliyu.

In the markets of Bamako and Ouagadougou, the government claims grain prices are at record lows due to export bans designed to “feed the people first.” Yet in the rural heartlands, farmers are stuck with surplus harvests that cannot access traditional export markets to neighbouring countries.

In Jibiya, on Nigeria’s side of the border, Ibra Bello, a 42-year-old agro-processor, is caught in a tightening squeeze between policy and survival. He imports cowpeas and onions from Niger, processes them into flour and dried products, then exports them back across the region.

But since the introduction of AES export bans and a 0.5% levy on ECOWAS-linked goods, his business has become a gamble.

“Sometimes I use formal routes, sometimes informal. Either way, I lose,” he said. “Recently, I lost goods worth over ₦8 million after a seizure.”

Now, farmers call him daily, complaining about their excess harvests that are going bad. These used to be perfect for his agro-processing business, but he says he’s not sure he can do it anymore.

For many traders across borders in AES and ECOWAS countries, the severing of ties has made trading difficult. From an increase in tariffs up to about 200% or confiscation of goods, customs duties and non-tariff barriers, these bottlenecks make it harder for goods to move across borders in the AES region. Alhaji Shamsu Jibia, a petty trader at the Jibiya border town, said he knows many people from Niger who can no longer come into Nigeria for business and vice versa. 

Alhaji Haruna Sada, a Nigerien trader who imports into Nigeria and exports back, corroborates this. According to him, many traders are suffering. “Taking good and plying the traditional routes these days is more risky for traders than going through the informal route. Sometimes goods are taxed more than the total worth of the export and traders have no choice but to retire to faith and debt,” he said. 

When military leaders in Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso announced their withdrawal from the Economic Community of West African States, they framed the decision as an assertion of “political independence…and economic emancipation” as contained in the Liptako-Gourma Charter 2023, the founding charter of the Alliance of Sahel States. In subsequent messaging, particularly during the July 2024 Niamey Declaration and the December 2025 Bamako Summit, Goïta, Traoré, and Tchiani explicitly framed their withdrawal from ECOWAS as a move to achieve “total sovereignty” and “economic decolonisation”, thereby granting them freedom from external economic pressure. 

But across border markets and supply corridors, the immediate effects have been far less emancipatory: trade routes are slowing, transaction costs are rising, and food systems are coming under strain, exposing a widening gap between the rhetoric of sovereignty and the realities of economic fragmentation.

In Burkina Faso and Mali, farmers who cannot sell their surplus maize and cowpeas to traditional coastal buyers are facing bankruptcy. FEWS NET (Famine Early Warning Systems Network): Reports from late 2025 indicate that while harvests were average, “market fragmentation” caused by the AES exit left farmers in southern Burkina and Mali with high stocks they could not move to their traditional high-paying coastal buyers.

In the same vein, many have abandoned their fields to work as “porters” for smuggling syndicates, carrying 50kg bags of grain on foot across borders to earn a fraction of what they used to get as commodity traders and owners. 

Some reports, such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the World Bank Trade and Transportation Assessment, suggest that moving a single bag of rice from the coast to Bamako now requires paying bribes at at least 12 to 15 unofficial checkpoints. “This has pushed the final price of food in Sahelian cities up by 18% since the start of 2026, even though the farmers are being paid less for their crops,” said a Sahelian farmer who asked not to be named for fear of retribution.

The economic “independence” that is yet to happen

Two years after withdrawal from ECOWAS, the data show food inflation spikes across all three AES states between 2022 and 2024, continued heavy dependence on imported wheat and processed staples, persistent trade deficits, declining trade flows with France and the United Kingdom and growing trade orientation toward China alongside sustained engagement with Russia.

The structural reality remains unchanged. Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso are landlocked and import-dependent economies with limited industrial processing capacity. Political sovereignty has reshaped alliances and trade routes, but it has not yet translated into economic insulation.

Two years after the ECOWAS exit, the evidence points to a system that is adapting under constraint rather than stabilising under policy. Trade continues, but in altered forms that are less efficient, less transparent and more costly.

The promise of independence now faces its most difficult test: whether political rupture can evolve into durable economic resilience rather than deeper market fragmentation. In the end, the real story is not simply that corridors are failing, but that geography continues to resist politics in the Sahel.

This article was produced with support from the African Academy for Open Source Investigations (AAOSI) and the African Digital Democracy Observatory (ADDO) as part of an initiative by Code for Africa (CfA). Visit https://disinfo.africa/ for more information.