Nigeria, Dec. 24 -- Walk into any policy discussion on Nigerian manufacturing, and you'll hear the same refrain: local producers need protection from imports. Poultry farmers want tariffs on frozen chicken. Fish processors demand import restrictions. Local refineries want tariffs on imported fuel. Textile manufacturers plead for border controls. The pattern repeats across nearly every sector of the economy.

The question isn't whether these producers face genuine challenges. They clearly do. The deeper question is why it has become practically impossible to produce almost anything locally and sell it at a price competitive with imports. And perhaps more troubling: whether some countries simply get locked into import dependence by structur...