Nigeria’s exports to African countries surged by 122.26 per cent in the first half of 2026, rising to ₦10.72 trillion from ₦4.82 trillion in the corresponding period of 2025, as crude oil and related petroleum products became increasingly dominant in the trade mix.
Over a six-year span, half-year records show Nigeria’s exports to Africa have climbed 675.9 per cent in naira terms, an almost eight-fold increase that analysts caution may reflect the currency’s depreciation more than any genuine expansion in real export earnings.
The pattern shows the continued dominance of crude oil and petroleum products within Nigeria’s export basket, fuelling concern that headline growth is concealing persistent weakness in non-oil trade.
Data from the National Bureau of Statistics’ foreign trade in goods reports for the first two quarters of 2026 show that crude petroleum, refined fuels, gas products, electricity and urea together accounted for 94.75 per cent of Nigeria’s exports to Africa in the first half of 2026, worth roughly ₦10.15 trillion, up from a 90.24 per cent share worth ₦4.35 trillion in the same period of 2025.
The oil and gas value chain expanded by 133.36 per cent between the two periods, outpacing the overall 122.26 per cent growth in exports to the continent, indicating that the trade surge with Africa was driven disproportionately by petroleum rather than by the non-oil exports the Federal Government has sought to promote.
By contrast, identifiable non-oil products, among them cement, cigarettes, tyres, vessels and food preparations, actually fell in value, from about ₦309.46 billion in the first half of 2025 to ₦296.61 billion in the first half of 2026, a decline of 4.15 per cent, even as total exports to Africa nearly doubled. Their share of total exports to the continent nearly halved over the period, from 6.42 per cent to 2.77 per cent.