Banned.
Nigerians have grown accustomed to the word. We probably hear it more times than we hear the word ‘rice’. Okay, I’m exaggerating. But every month there’s news about something a regulator—either the CBN, federal or state governments have banned or restricted access to.
The last time you read or heard a story about international trade, it was probably about Buhari and Emefiele restricting imports or trying to get Nigerians to export more. And in some ways, their drive to boost trade is valid. The goal is to ensure that we earn enough from exports to afford imported items like petrol and raw materials for manufacturing. With more foreign exchange, people can also pay for education abroad and travel for vacations.
For as long as we can remember, our trade portfolio has been quite concentrated on one item—oil. And since revenue from the black mineral has struggled in the past
