By SCM Correspondent
NIGERIA is sitting on a goldmine, but it’s currently stuck in a traffic jam from hell.
A bombshell report from the Rome Business School Nigeria, released this January, warns that the African superpower is losing billions every year to a “primitive” supply chain plagued by banditry, crumbling roads, and high-tech thieves.
Despite being a global oil giant, Nigeria’s economy is being “strangulated” by a logistics nightmare that sees 200,000 barrels of oil stolen every single day. Meanwhile, at the nation’s ports, British and international firms are being walloped by a staggering £4 billion ($5 billion) annual bill in “demurrage” fines simply because the system is too slow to move cargo.
It isn’t just money at stake—it’s lives. The report highlights a “dire human consequence” in the health sector.
In Northern Nigeria, supply chains are so fractured that essential malaria drugs frequently run out.
Even worse, the lack of “cold chain” storage means 20% of life-saving vaccines spoil in the heat before they can reach a needle. In a chilling statistic, the report notes that counterfeit medications—often filling the gap left by broken supply lines—kill 100,000 people across Africa every year.
For the average Nigerian, the crisis hits the dinner table. With only a fraction of the country’s 195,000km of roads actually paved, transportation costs have skyrocketed by 40%.
Food Waste: Up to 40% of crops like tomatoes and maize rot in the fields because they can’t get to market.
Highway Men: Banditry in the North and “vandalism” in the Niger Delta mean truck drivers are literally risking their lives to deliver basic goods.
Fuel Pain: The 2023 removal of fuel subsidies has sent a “spike” through the cost of living, pushing 7 million more people into poverty.
A Digital Revolution?
It’s not all doom and gloom.
The report argues that if Nigeria can fix its “physical and cybernetic backbone,” it could boost its GDP by a massive 3% annually.
The future looks “green,” with plans for Lagos to become a hub for electric delivery vehicles and “city warehousing” to bypass the gridlock.
There is also a push for Blockchain technology to be used in shipping to kill off the corruption that saps £4 billion from the system every year.
”Supply chains are the threads that make the Nigerian economy work,” the report concludes. But until the government fixes the potholes and fends off the pirates, those threads remain dangerously frayed.
