A lawyer and multilateral diplomat, Dr Babafemi Badejo, has urged African states to tackle corruption, which he believes makes economic integration difficult.
Reacting to Nigeria’s signing of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement, he urged the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UN ECA) to organise a meeting to address the challenges to AfCFTA’s implementation.
Badejo, an African Union (AU) Consultant who was at the consultative meeting on AfCFTA in Senegal and Ethiopia, said AfCFTA did not pay attention to corruption and several underhand methods that make developmental integration arduous in Africa.
He said in a statement: “The women trying to bring farm produce into Nigeria from Benin Republic and have to pay toll rates to different uniformed Nigerian officials at over ten different supports on a short stretch of roads inside Nigeria know the truth about what I am saying.
“What about immigration officials who know that ECOWAS allows free movement but daily generate additions to their salaries through extortion?
“I recommended that the ECA needed to organize a serious two-day meeting on the challenges of corruption for a viable implementation of the AfCFTA and how to ameliorate beyond the farce of the African Union declaring 2018 as anti-corruption year and making President Buhari (thanks to his effective Ambassador in Addis Ababa), the champion.”
Badejo, a former University of Lagos (UNILAG) Political Science teacher, said other issues requiring close attention under a viable implementation would be environmental pressures that drive some conflicts in Africa.
He emphasised the importance of peace for developmental production.
Badejo added: “Definitely, without produce, there will be little or no trade. The age long farmers and herders conflict is worsening on the continent and reducing production for trade and development.
“ECOWAS is normally put forward as a great example to be scaled up in Africa. However, what has been the experience in movement of goods? Better still, where are the goods moving in ECOWAS?
“I had asked a friend who went into details to tell about all the tradeable goods listed on the ECOWAS website with their customs codes, etc. I asked the Senegalese friend to give me two products being sold in Dakar that were produced in Ghana or Nigeria. He went quiet.
“Most goods in Dakar continue to come from France and where this is not the case, it is from outside of West Africa. So, even ECOWAS needs to do a lot more beyond its relative success in the uninspiring land of the blind.”
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