Two deals on the table with Africa’s Big Brother showing no signs of shifting grounds on either, it seems one moment the world had better listened to the underlying message. For much as it is tempting to see every instance of dilatoriness as merely the mutation of the same old affliction of state stasis, I must however confess that the typically go-slow Buhari administration seems to have made a wise choice in its studied ‘tardiness’ over the hot-button aspiration for a continent-wide free trade area.
You know the story already. I begin with the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCTA), an initiative which stakes a grand ambition of pooling together the 55 African Union member states closer by removing such barriers to trade like tariffs and import quotas, allowing the free flow of goods and services between its members. On March 21, 44 African countries – minus the two continental economic powerhouses, of Nigeria and South Africa – had signed the instrument to kick-start its take-off.
Way back then, President Buhari had spoken on the so-called $3 trillion continental free-trade zone covering the continent’s 1.2 billion people and what it meant to the nation’s economy: “We will not agree to anything that will undermine local manufacturers and entrepreneurs, or that may lead to Nigeria becoming a dumping ground for finished goods.”
Only last week, at a news conference during a visit by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, he also made it quite clear that his administration was in no hurry to sign the agreement: “In trying to guarantee employment, goods and services in our country, we have to be careful with agreements that will compete, maybe successfully, against our upcoming industries.”
“I am a slow reader, maybe because I was an ex-soldier. I didn’t read it fast enough before my officials saw that it was all right for signature. I kept it on my table. I will soon sign it”, the president was reported to have said, tongue in cheek.
A little while back, I watched the president address the same concerns before a European Union delegation that had called on him to sign the West Africa-EU free trade agreement – the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), put up precisely for the same general reasons covering 16 West African countries (and Mauritania) and the European Union.
“Our industries”, I heard the president say then, “cannot compete with the more efficient and highly technologically driven industries in Europe”.
“We are not enthusiastic about signing the EPA because of our largely youthful population.”
Never mind the profound irony in the biggest economy on the continent being unable to take on the challenge of regional or continental trade on the grand scale; however, away from the penchant to play the numbers and, if you like, the egoistical game, it seems one of such times when a perceptible lack of enthusiasm for the big league must be seen as borne of profound self-awareness.
In a way, the AfCFTA deal is important – perhaps far more than its symbolism. That intra-African trade presently stands at a miserable 15 percent obviously says a lot about the extent to which the economies of the countries suffer disconnection and disarticulation from each other. And irrespective of what one makes of the statement credited to Chiedu Osakwe, Director-General, Nigerian Office for Trade Negotiation (NOTN), AfCFTA’s Nigerian negotiator that AfCFTA was “much more than a trade agreement but about strategically reorganising the geo-economic landscape of Africa, Nigeria’s leadership position, competitiveness and modernisation”, or even his debatable allusion to its potential to address “the issue of unemployment, market access and economic growth for Nigeria and Africa”, there is no doubt a lot to be said of the merits of a more robust continent-wide trade as having the potential to strengthen the bonds of African brotherhood.
The big problem, as always, is how to achieve this in such ways and manners to deliver maximum benefits to the disparate actors.
Can we frankly say that we are ready for a global free trade agreement as envisaged under AfCFTA or even the EPA? What will Nigeria be bringing to the table? What would be the basis of reciprocity since Nigeria currently lacks the competitive edge?
What safeguards are there in a continent where even neighbours are known to act contrary to each other’s national interests as it is often the case with our ECOWAS neighbours?
The point is, there is a world of difference between our continuing pretence to being the continent’s economic powerhouse and the hard reality of a truly industrialised self-sustaining economy. The fact simply is that our industries are simply not there yet, either in terms of their competitiveness or in any real sense of global appeal. The same with our educational system. The much that can be said is that they are not ready to take on the challenge of grooming our youths for the economy of the future. One direct result of that is the current situation in which one out of two youths are either unemployed or unemployable.
Today, for all our pretences to real time manufacturing, our basic infrastrcutures are still basically antedeluvian which of course renders any real prospects of competitiveness herculean.
But then, what might yet prove to be the greatest obstacle are the countless other bilateral trade agreements by AU countries with the rest of the world. It goes without saying that a number of these agreements actually run counter to the spirit of AfCFTA. As for Nigeria, it seems easy to see that many of the agreements not only have potentials to undermine current efforts at shoring up manufacturing capacity through large scale dumping of cheap products that are not necessarily manufactured on the continent, they might in fact prove injurious to our national recovery efforts. Of course, with most of African countries still largely yoked to their former colonial, trading patterns, it remains to be seen how the AfCFTA framework will deliver on the expected goals.
Yes, South Africa has signed – convinced it was in its national interests. Being the continent’s indisputable manufacturing powerhouse, it should have done so, long before now.
As for Nigeria, it seems one moment when ‘go slow’ could turn a virtue. By opting to take it easy, the president is perfectly in order.
