BRICS Partnership and the Political Economy of Nigeria's Agricultural Export Diversification: South–South Unequal Exchange in Benue and Kogi States (2025–2026)

Abstract

Nigeria's formal admission as a BRICS partner country in January 2025 reopened a long- standing debate in the country's political economy: whether deeper engagement with non- Western trading blocs drives genuine structural upgrading away from primary- commodity exporting or reproduces a South–South variant of the unequal exchange that classical Dependency Theory associates with core–periphery trade. This article examines that question empirically through agricultural export performance in two contiguous North Central states, Benue and Kogi, using a stratified survey of 270 registered agricultural exporters, mechanized farmers, trade associations, and policymakers (Benue n ₁ = 156; Kogi n ₂ = 114), proportionally allocated from an estimated population of 834 via the Yamane (1967) procedure, together with key informant interviews. All four null hypotheses were rejected: BRICS- related policy exposure was significantly associated with agricultural export structure (t = 2. 43, p =. .016, Cohen's d ≈ 0. 30), exchange rate stability (χ ² = 38. 64, p =. .001, Cramér' s V ≈ 0. 38), foreign reserve contribution (χ ² = 31. 28, p =. .012, Cramér' s V ≈ 0. 34), and overall export performance (r = 0. 512, p <. .001, r ². ≈ .26). However, disaggregated evidence shows the two states experiencing structurally distinct constraints. Kogi's cashew sector is losing an estimated 70–80 percent of potential export value to raw-nut exporting and foreign intermediary rent capture. In contrast, Benue's cassava sector faces processing and energy-cost bottlenecks rather than intermediary capture. This indicates that BRICS engagement has thus far produced volume diversification (more raw and semi-processed commodity trade) without structural upgrading (a shift toward higher-value-added exports). The article integrates classical Prebisch–Frank Dependency Theory with Global Value Chain governance and South–South unequal exchange perspectives to argue that China and India function as industrial 'cores' relative to Benue and Kogi's primary-commodity 'peripheries' even within a nominally South–South partnership. It closes with an actionable policy matrix assigning specific implementing bodies, financing mechanisms (including the BRICS New Development Bank's concessional windows), and time horizons for converting partner-country status into durable, value-added agricultural export gains.