So why ask the question
anyway? failed to develop sustainable routes to
foreign markets and as such we are at the
mercy of other nations.
At this juncture, let me apologize for the
deliberately misleading title. This article
really is not about whether or not Nigeria
should sign the AfCFTA. It‘s not about
whether or not Nigeria has the capacity
or infrastructure to take advantage of the
AfCFTA. Truth is, we don‘t. It is already clear that the countries that
will most benefit from AfCFTA are those
countries which have invested or are
interested in investing significantly, in
building up capacities, their
infrastructures, creating conducive
business environments and developing
policies that enable rather than inhibit
increased local participation in business.
Unfortunately, Nigeria does not appear to
be one of these countries.
The title of this article is only a
roundabout way of getting to the crux of
what this treatise is really about – why
Nigeria at this stage of her existence
should be jittery about signing trade
agreements on the basis of infrastructural
and capacity challenges.
That‘s right. Nigeria – supposedly Africa‘s
largest economy – is afraid of signing a
continental free trade with mostly smaller
African nations.
Opponents of Nigeria‘s participation in
AfCFTA have raised and continue to raise
very legitimate issues bordering on
freedom of movement, currencies
discrepancies, and non-tariff barriers that
will present a major impediment to true
economic integration. But Nigeria‘s major
challenges – as noted by Dr. John Isemede
in another article published in this edition
of the Export Brief – are not external. We
do not really have to bother about what
other nations do or do not do, with their
economies or their infrastructure. The
key problem is that as a nation, we have
Whereas everyone acknowledges the
need to make these things happen, and to
develop non-oil sectors and drive non-oil
exports from Nigeria, there is little
agreement on the modalities for achieving
these goals.
For starters, policy makers in government
continue to push through policies that
have neither the buy-in from the
organized private sector nor significant
input from the academic sector. These
policies are expected to be implemented
by the private sector.
On the part of the organized private
sector, there seems to be a lack of desire
or will, to truly hold policy makers to
account. The expansion of the informal
sector in Nigeria is also an indictment of
organizations representing the organized
private sector in the country.