Olalekan Adetayo and Ifeanyi Onuba
Indications emerged on Sunday that President Muhamamdu Buhari cancelled his scheduled trip to Kigali, Rwanda, because enough consultation was not made before the Federal Executive Council approved the signing of the framework agreement for establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area.
However, experts have cautioned the government against rushing to sign the ACFTA agreement.
The FEC presided over by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo had approved the signing of the agreement last Wednesday while Buhari was on a visit to Yobe State.
With the approval, Buhari would have signed the agreement during the extra ordinary summit of the African Union holding on Tuesday, March 21.
But Buhari cancelled his trip to Rwanda at the last minute.
The spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Tope Elias-Fatile, on Sunday issued a statement explaining the cancellation of the presidential trip.
“President Muhamamdu Buhari has cancelled his trip to Kigali, Rwanda, to attend an Extraordinary Summit of the African Union on Tuesday, March 21, and to sign the framework agreement for establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area.
“This is to allow more time for input from Nigerian stakeholders,” the statement said.
Stakeholders, including the Nigeria Labour Congress had kicked against the signing of the agreement.
But despite the opposition, the FEC presided over by Osinbajo had approved the signing on Wednesday.
The Minister of Trade and Investment, Okechukwu Enelamah, had told State House correspondents that with the approval, Buhari was expected to sign the agreement during the March 21 meeting in Rwanda.
Enelamah said Heads of State and Governments of AU had in January 2012 decided to establish ACFTA as an economic policy for regional integration.
He explained that after the signing of the agreement, the heads of governments would go into detailed negotiations.
The minister had said, “It (agreement) will be signed by our President at an extraordinary session of the AU.
“The council also approved for Nigeria to express an interest in hosting the secretariat where the work will be done.
“We also got an approval for the Nigerian office for trade negotiations along ministries, departments and agencies and the private sector to work together and continue with the next stage of the negotiation.
“The first stage is the overall framework establishing CFTA. The next is the protocol on trade in goods and associated annexes; also a protocol on trade in services and finally, the protocol on rules and procedures for the settlement of disputes.”
The minister said council members believed that in approving the signing the agreement, they are doing what is good for Nigeria.
“We want it to generate more exports. African market is 1.2 billion and we are 180 million. We have an ambitious economic agenda, and we are going into this wanting to clearly improve market access for our products and our people.
“We are also going into it wanting to protect our markets from unfair trade practices – dumping, smuggling and all other things that can go wrong,” he said.
The Media Office of the Presidency later released a fact-sheet on the benefits of the agreement for Nigeria.
The government stated that the agreement would expand market access for Nigeria’s exporters of goods and services, spur growth and boost job creation, as well as eliminate barriers against Nigeria’s products and provide a dispute settlement mechanism for stopping the hostile and discriminatory treatment directed against Nigerian natural and corporate business persons in other African countries.
Don’t rush into signing CTFA pact, economists tell FG
Finance and economic experts on Sunday, however, cautioned the Federal Government against signing the ACFTA.
The economists, who spoke to our correspondents in separate telephone interviews, said the refusal of the President to attend the meeting where he was to sign the pact was in the best interest of the Nigerian economy.
They warned the government against signing any agreement that would hurt the industrial sector of the economy.
Those that spoke to our correspondent are a former Director-General, Abuja Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Dr. Chijioke Ekechukwu; the President, National Association of Small Scale Industrialists, Mr Ezekiel Essien and a Developmental Economist, Odilim Enwagbara.
Enwagbara said signing the pact would open the Nigeria to economic abuse, adding that many companies in Nigeria could not compete globally due to infrastructural constraints.
He said many of the countries in the African continent rely on the Nigerian market for their goods, adding that any attempt to further open up the Nigerian market would jeopardize the industrialisation efforts of the Federal Government.
He said, “The government should not sign the agreement because as a country we are not competing efficiently.
“The only time we can sign economic partnership with anybody is when we know that if we do so it’s to our benefit
“We signed the World Trade Organization partnership in 1995 and China did not sign it until 2000 and so Russia did not sign it too until early 2000.
“So we have to make sure our house is in order before we sign any economic partnership. If we open our borders under the CFTA, it will affect our industries.”
In his comment, the former ACCI DG said while the agreement was aimed at creating a single continental market for goods and services, its implementation might affect Nigeria since the country still had a very high operating costs of production.
Ekechukwu said, “Nigeria is a net importing country of goods and services. As far as we are not technologically advanced, as far as we have a large population, as far as our cost of production remains high, Nigeria will be a dumping ground for goods and services.
CFTA will benefit all the smaller countries in Africa looking for markets for their products.
“Companies from Europe Asia and America will take advantage of the agreement to bring their production lines to neighbouring African countries with steady power supply and dump their products in Nigeria.
“It will affect our emerging SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) and exporters, as well as local manufacturers whose products will compete unfavourably with the imported ones under the canopy of CFTA.”
In his comment, Ezekiel said the government should ensure that the industrial sector was given adequate incentives to compete globally before signing the CFTA.
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