Nigeria’s agricultural trade has apparently decided to take a journey from surplus to deficit, leaving farmers, manufacturers and policymakers staring at the economic scoreboard with more questions than answers. Former Vice President and African Democratic Congress (ADC) presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar has criticised President Bola Tinubu’s administration over the sharp reversal, saying Nigeria’s agricultural trade moved from a ₦740.27 billion surplus in the first half of 2025 to a ₦56.13 billion deficit in H1 2026—a staggering ₦796.40 billion swing. Official National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data underpin the figures cited in the controversy.
From Export Earnings to Economic Head-Scratching
The numbers provide the main drama. Agricultural exports reportedly fell by 33.3 per cent, dropping from about ₦2.96 trillion in H1 2025 to ₦1.98 trillion in H1 2026. Agricultural imports also declined, but by only 8.5 per cent, from ₦2.22 trillion to ₦2.03 trillion. In other words, the import bill came down, but export earnings fell much faster—leaving the agricultural trade balance looking less like a success story and more like an accounting department searching for its missing file.
Atiku argues that blaming the situation simply on Nigerians importing too much would miss the bigger problem. According to him, the more worrying development is the amount Nigeria is no longer earning from selling agricultural products abroad. He says farmers are dealing with insecurity and high production costs, while manufacturers face the additional burden of expensive operations and inadequate conditions for processing agricultural produce locally.
Nigeria Grows the Crops, Others Add the Value
The former vice president has also taken aim at Nigeria’s continued dependence on the export of largely unprocessed commodities. Cocoa, cashew and sesame remain among the country’s significant agricultural exports, with Q2 2026 data showing cashew nuts in shell, cocoa beans and sesame seeds among the leading products.
And this is where the satire practically writes itself: Nigeria may grow the crop, harvest the crop and proudly wave goodbye to the crop—only for another country to do much of the processing, create additional businesses around it and capture a larger share of the final value. Atiku says the country needs stronger domestic processing so that more jobs, investment and export value remain within Nigeria rather than being exported alongside the raw commodity.
The criticism comes at a time when Nigeria’s raw-material exports have actually increased substantially, highlighting the complicated nature of the problem. Recent analysis of NBS trade statistics showed raw-material exports rising to ₦3.84 trillion in H1 2026, suggesting that Nigeria can still sell large quantities of primary commodities internationally while struggling to capture enough value through domestic processing.
Atiku therefore wants the Tinubu administration to explain what it is doing to make farming safer, production cheaper, transportation easier and local processing more profitable. His argument is that farmers cannot cultivate promises, while manufacturers cannot keep factories running on speeches. The political message is clear: if agricultural production is supposed to drive jobs, exports and economic growth, then the government must also create the conditions for those crops to become competitive Nigerian products.
The agricultural trade reversal is consequently more than a battle of political accusations; it is a warning about Nigeria’s ability to turn its enormous agricultural potential into sustainable export earnings. Whether the latest figures represent a temporary setback or evidence of a deeper structural problem will depend on what happens to exports, processing and farmers’ operating conditions in the months ahead. For now, the farm-to-market journey has produced an uncomfortable destination: a ₦740.27 billion surplus has become a ₦56.13 billion deficit, and Atiku is demanding to know who—or what—moved the goalposts. Readers should watch out for future updates on this developing story from OGM News NG
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