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Lekan Sote
At the recent "Memorial Symposium in the honor of Professor Adebayo Adedeji", the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, Vera Songwe, regretted the delay from Nigeria to sign and ratify She is informed by her opinion that the legacy of Prof. Adedeji of Nigeria, one of his predecessors in office, was to reintegrate Africa whose balkanization was concluded at the Berlin Conference of 124 European powers, the Ottoman Empire, in 1884 and the United States of America. 39; America.
Songwe is concerned that the member countries of the European Union make 60% of their trade with each other, the African countries have a dismal level of trade between them: Nigeria does not trade with the rest of the world. # 39; Africa. South Africa is doing better with a $ 32 billion trade.
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo acknowledges the low level of trade between African countries and promised that the federal government would fill this gap. Songwe believes that Africa should diversify its trade and convert its 1.2 billion population into an economic bloc that will speak to Europe (and the world) with one voice.
President Hage Gottfried Genghob of Namibia believes that ALEFF should not only unify Africa's economy but also allow African nations to ingest internal political affairs in Africa. each other, especially when they overthrow their governments by violent coups d'état or when governments fail to restrain murderous shepherds
. The Nigerian Minister of External Affairs, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari, believes that Africans should prefer Africa to other continents, while worrying that the Lagos Action Plan for Economic Development of Africa 1980-2000, in the goal of increasing the self-sufficiency of Africa, generally observed in the breach.
Some realists believe that Africa and most of its regional economic communities, with the exception of the Nigerian head of state, General Yakubu Gowon, who pointed out that future leaders African nations must have a vision, suggested that there is no administrative and technical capacity. must be a continuation of government policies and programs. He insists that planning is crucial for the economic development and growth of Africa.
In 1970, Gowon launched the second five-year development plan of the post-civil war period overseen by Adedeji, federal commissioner for economic planning and reconstruction. 19659002] A former Liberian president, Amos Sawyer, who notes that the Monrovia Declaration provides a strategy for industrialization and regional integration, says that African countries must be sensitive to global political ideologies.
The Prof. Kenya's Peter Ayong Nyong o, who claims that Bretton Wood's economic options are unrealistic and unrelated to Africa, recommends that Africa has a reservoir of scientific labor-intensive and technological – perhaps as a bulwark against the invasion of foreign goods
that if President Muhammadu Buhari now approves the AfCFTA agreement, the economy of Nigeria could become even more vulnerable Ademola Oyejide, Professor of Economics, conducted a study predicts that Nigeria will experience a 0.4% change in real income minus 16.7% of customs revenue and less 0.2 percent of change in trade, if Nigeria now enters into the AfCFTA agreement.
In addition, it reveals that the changes in the real wages of unskilled farm labor will be less than 0.54 percent, that of unskilled non-agricultural labor 0.12 percent and that of other non-agricultural workers. Skilled workers will be 0.4%. These indices are lower than those of a better structured South African economy that will benefit more from the FTA and AfCFTA.
This explains the wide consultation that President Buhari is holding with stakeholders before putting pen to paper in the AfCFTA document. Vice President Osinbajo says the consultation is guided by the need to protect Nigerian manufacturers.
Chairman of the NEPAD business group, Nike Akande, hints that Nigeria will not be ready to conclude the deal. The Director General of the National Trade Negotiations Bureau, Chiedu Osakwe, points out that some long-standing economic issues also need to be addressed.
Professor Nyong "o observes that the import substitution strategy suggested by Bretton Woods advisers and the use of loans to build infrastructure, have failed miserably and have defeated the development plans of the # 39; Africa. Serve foreign loans with the devalued naira is not kosher.
Those who want Nigeria to join the AfCFTA with a minimum interest rate of 1% of the Central Bank of Nigeria must remember the suicidal Latin expression: Fiat justita, pereat mundes be done, even if the world perishes.
The survival of Nigeria must be considered. Hans J. Morgenthau, a specialist in international relations, says, "There is no political morality without caution." Someone must question how AfCFTA will affect Nigeria's economy.
Because Nigeria does not have the infrastructure and ability to effectively manufacture the needs of consumers, the AfCFTA could curb Nigeria's quest to migrate from the perpetual export of primary products and import manufactured goods, for which the workforce is the most assaulted.
Adam Smith, observes that "the great object of the political economy of each country is to increase the wealth and power of the country," also said nicely that a country "should, therefore, not give no preference, or superior encouragement, to the foreign trade of consumption over domestic trade. "
But he then recommends:" The excess part of (the manufactories of a country) must be sent abroad, and exchanged for something for which there is a demand at home. In the words of Tho Mas Pakenham, Europe & # 39; s Scramble for Africa, was to evacuate the "unsold cotton stocks of Manchester, Lyon silk and gin from Hamburg", products of the then nascent industrial revolution. [19659002] Smith did not anticipate that a Nigeria was to supply consumer goods and jobs for its population.It was obviously not expected that the dynamics of the political economy would make Nigeria acquiring the necessary technology to use its local resources to meet its needs for consumer goods.
Kenichi Ohmae, Japanese expert in emerging management … to create the same patterns of consumption and value systems "globally, does not recognize unfortunately that each economy must provide jobs, as well as consumer goods, for its citizens.
Nigerian economic nationalists fear that AfCFTA will lead to dumping via South Africa, the French-speaking and North African countries, and cause job losses, unfair trade barriers, the economic depression, an economy dependent on imports and capital flight.
Omhae, who argues that trade between nations should lead to large-scale economies of production, and hence cheaper goods, complains that "the politics of nationalism" It probably does not understand the social effects Unemployment. "
He believes that economic nationalists protect only special interests, such as labor, and that only those nations that bring agricultural and mining products to the international market can claim to have local commerce.
Well, only Nigeria has infrastructure and macroeconomic policies that support indigenous and international businesses that operate within Nigeria's borders, offshore subsidiaries, joint ventures or franchises, to realize economic, political and economic gains. Social, should join AfCFTA.
The free trade African lobby behind the ECA must recognize plans to use the backdoor on Africa will jeopardize the economy and work of Nigeria.
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