An Informal Economy Paradox

The town of Aba in south-eastern Nigeria is famous for two things: a dynamic informal manufacturing sector, and an infamous vigilante group known as the Bakassi Boys. Propelled by embedded entrepreneurial practices of the local Igbo ethnic group, Aba has become an icon of informal economy-led growth, reflected in the term ‘Aba-made’ – a popular Nigerian expression for cheap manufactured goods. In the town's burgeoning shoe and garment clusters, complex supply, subcontracting and credit networks, animated by relations of kinship and community, turn out a wide range of high fashion goods, ranging from the latest ladies' sandals and handbags to designer jeans, suits and undergarments. Despite their local origins, these goods often sport high street labels, including GAP, St. Michael's and Tommy Hilfiger, or stamps reading ‘made in Italy’ or ‘London, Paris, Rome’. In the weeks before major festivals such as Christmas or the Muslim Eid, Aba's shoe and garment clusters are transformed into hubs of international trade. The town bustles with traders from across Nigeria and as far as Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, who wind their way among the thousands of makeshift workshops to purchase consignments of goods for export to low income consumers across West, Central and Southern Africa. By the year 2000, the informal shoe and garment clusters in Aba had a combined annual turnover of nearly 200 million US dollars and employed some 50 thousand producers, workers and apprentices, all without the assistance of the state.