Between 1999 and 2013 Nigeria became the world's single largest market for used cars. The Yoruba word *tokunbo* — literally 'come from across the sea', originally a name given to a child born abroad — became the name of the vehicle itself. By 2012 the National Bureau of Statistics estimated that of every ten cars sold in Nigeria, nine were used and one was new. The country was importing roughly 400,000 used vehicles a year, the majority through one port that wasn't even Nigerian: Cotonou, Republic of Benin.
Why Cotonou and not Apapa. A used Toyota Camry landed at Cotonou paid the Beninese duty of 5% plus the ECOWAS Trade Liberalisation Scheme transit fee — together perhaps US$400 on a US$3,500 car. The same car landed at Apapa paid 22% duty + 20% VAT + 7% port and harbour charges + a freight-forwarder mark-up — together perhaps US$1,800. The 70-kilometre drive from Cotonou to the Seme border, plus the negotiated NCS settlement at the gate, was cheaper than clearing at Apapa even after the bribes. The Beninese government built its national budget around this arbitrage: in 2010 vehicle re-exports to Nigeria accounted for an estimated 45% of total Beninese government revenue.
The 'Belgium' supply chain. The verb *to buy Belgium* entered Nigerian English in this period — referring to the fact that the world's used-car wholesale hub is Antwerp and Brussels, where European leasing-fleet returns are auctioned and shipped to West Africa. A Lagos dealer in Ladipo (the largest auto-parts market in West Africa, see also the spare-parts cluster at Nkpor) would place an online bid on Auto1.be at 02:00, pay via a London-based agent in pounds, and take delivery at Cotonou six weeks later. The whole supply chain — bid, ship, clear, deliver — ran in three currencies and four jurisdictions, all to deliver a 2004 Honda Accord to a customer in Surulere for ₦1.8m.
What it did to the country. Three large second-order effects. (1) Ladipo, Nkpor and Aba became continental spare-parts markets, supplying as far as Chad, Cameroon and DRC. (2) An entire generation of mechanics learnt their trade reverse-engineering used Toyotas and Hondas in roadside workshops, producing the cohort that would later staff Innoson and the EV pilots. (3) The federal-government auto policy of 2013 was conceived in direct response to the tokunbo flood — and made it worse.
The tokunbo republic also did something subtler: it gave the Nigerian middle class its first taste of vehicle ownership without bank credit. Because the credit vacuum meant there were no auto loans, the tokunbo trade ran on cash, cooperative thrift (*ajo*) and the informal escrow of the dealer-and-buyer relationship. The car was the asset Nigerians could actually buy — and it was second-hand, imported, four currencies deep, and registered in another country until the day it crossed the Seme border.
Figure 1
Cars supplied to the Nigerian market, 1960–2024 (thousands of units)
The assembly economy of Peugeot Kaduna and VW Lagos collapsed with SAP. By 2000 nine out of ten cars sold were used imports from Cotonou and Antwerp.