Business Day (21/12/2025) - Vegetable and Edible Oil Producers Association of Nigeria (VEOPAN) has lamented the ceaseless smuggling of vegetable and edible oil into the country and called on the federal government to implement the policy which banned the smuggling of the vegetable and edible oil into the country.

VEOPAN has warned that the unabated smuggling of the product into the country is not only undermining local producers and destroying jobs, but also reducing government revenue as well as threatening food security.

Okey Ikoro, national chairman of the Vegetable and Edible Oil Producers of Nigeria, (VEOPAN), while briefing journalists in Owerri, said the ceaseless smuggling of the product has caused a serious economic crime that is quietly destroying Nigeria’s agro-industrial sector.

“The large-scale Smuggling of vegetable oil, especially palm olein and refined palm oil, into Nigeria our land borders and water ways” has posed serious consequences to local Industries and local refiners.

According to Ikoro, “Nigerian refineries face unfair price competition, plants operate at 30-50 percent of their installed capacity, high fixed costs(power, logistics, finance) become unstable, you cannot compete fairly with products that pay no duty, no tax, and no compliance with costs”.

The national chairman noted that “the products evade import duties, VAT, quality controls and regulatory approvals”.

He decried the unchecked smuggling of the large scale olien and refined palm oil into Nigeria, through neighbouring ports(mainly Benin Republic and Togo, land borders and creeks, false documentation and under-declaration as well re-labeling of foreign refined oil as “locally sourced”,have combined together to cause refinery shutdown, and loss of jobs to factory workers, transporters, engineers, farmers, traders as well as thousands of direct and indirect jobs to Nigerians.

He noted further it has depressed local prices, discouraged oil palm farming, increased rural poverty, insecurity and loss of billions of revenue to the government as internally generated revenue(IGR).

Meanwhile, VEOPAN has called for enforcement policy implementation, and not reversal, and that the federal and state governments, security agencies, traditional rulers, market associations and Nigerians, ” should stand against smuggling and stand for Nigerian production”.

Read more at https://businessday.ng/news/article/group-laments-unabated-smuggling-of-vegetable-oil-into-nigeria/