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The
immediate ban on the crop will be in place for six months and
then reviewed, Vice President Kashim Shettima said.
Nigeria follows a growing list of other West African countries,
including Burkina Faso, Mali, Togo, Ivory Coast and Ghana, that
have banned or restricted export of the crop in the past two
years.
“The ban will transform Nigeria from an exporter of raw shea nut
to a global supplier of refined shea butter, oil, and other
derivatives,” Shettima said Tuesday.
He added that the decision was not “an anti-trade policy but a
pro-value addition policy designed to secure raw materials for
our processing factories" and boost income and jobs for rural
workers.
Raw shea nut is pulverized and processed to produce shea butter,
a key ingredient for manufacturing products like lotion,
shampoos, conditioners and moisturizers.
“It is one of the most important bases for skincare, especially
now that a lot of people are tilting toward nontoxic skincare,”
said Zainab Bashir, an Abuja-based dermatologist.
While Nigeria accounts for 40% of the world’s supply of the
crop, it contributes to just 1% of the $6.5-billion global
market share in shea products, according to the vice president.
The measure came weeks after the northern Niger state opened a
shea butter processing plant that officials described as one of
Africa’s largest.
Authorities said that if the export ban remains in force, it is
expected to generate $300 million in the short term and $3
billion by 2027.
Experts have argued that such efforts must come with more
investment to grow domestic industries.
“The ban seems to suggest that the government has identified a
supply-gap issue, but an export ban does little actually to lock
in current in-country production solely for Nigerian
processors,” Ikemesit Effiong, a partner at SBM Intelligence, a
Lagos-based risk advisory firm, told The Associated Press.
The move appeared to contradict the long-standing trade policy
of Nigeria's President Bola Tinubu, who has positioned the
country as a free-market economy by removing a series of
subsidies on essential commodities such as fuel and electricity.
Tinubu has also floated the country's currency and reversed a
ban on the import of dozens of items by the former government.
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