Local businesses in northern Nigeria feel the sting of regional sanctions against neighboring Niger

abcnews.go.com:

A decision by a bloc of West African nations to shut down their borders with Niger as a way of sanctioning its coup plotters is harming local businesses in northern Nigeria, where a cross-border economy has boomed for years

ABUJA, Nigeria — A decision by a bloc of West African nations to shut down their borders with Niger as a way of sanctioning its coup plotters is harming local businesses in northern Nigeria, where a cross-border economy has boomed for years.

The bloc known as ECOWAS restricted financial transactions and shut the borders between Niger and its member nations as part of measures to force the coup plotters to reinstate Nigerien President Mohamed Bazoum who was overthrown last month by soldiers in his Presidential Guard.

But the sting of the sanctions against the junta is being felt on the other side of the 1,600 kilometers (995 miles) -long border, in Nigeria.

Niger accounts for 75% of the total value of exports from Nigeria’s cross-border informal trade, according to a study by the Central Bank of Nigeria. The bank’s latest report in 2016 valued goods traded across the border with Niger at 828 billion naira ($934 million) a year.

In Nigeria's northwestern Katsina state, the border's closure and restricted traffic on nearby roads left dozens of trucks stranded for days, most of them loaded with food items and other perishable goods. Prices of livestock, animal products and some commodities usually supplied from the city of Maradi in Niger have increased, local residents said.

Nigeria's authorities are enforcing the restriction of movement across the border but the measure has also impacted traffic in the surrounding area, including truck drivers not heading to Niger but other border towns in Nigeria.

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