Following the recommendation of the Presidential Committee for the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AFCFTA), which yesterday transmitted its report to President Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria will sign the agreement, under conditions communicated by important presidential sources to thisday. The first phase of the agreement was adopted by the Heads of State of the African Union (AU) at their 10th Extraordinary Summit in Kigali, Rwanda, on 21 March 2018. Now the signing of the treaty is the simple part. Making sure it works is the hard thing. Africa is not performing well in implementing past agreements. But what prevented previous treaties from working should not thwart the implementation of the AfCFTA. “If we let unbridled imports continue, it will dominate our trade. This implies that coastal importing countries prosper, while landlocked countries will continue to suffer and need help. Most AU member states have signed the agreement. Initially, Benin, Botswana, Eritrea, Guinea-Bissau, Nigeria and Zambia did not sign the agreement. [63] Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari was particularly reluctant when it harmed Nigerien entrepreneurship and Nigerian industry. [64] On July 7, 2019, Nigeria and Benin committed to signing free trade in Africa at the 12th Extraordinary Session of the Trade Union Assembly on ACFTA; Eritrea is the only nation among the 55 member States of the African Union that has not signed the agreement.

[65] [66] [41] They also get rid of quotas, so there is no limit to how much trade you can do. The African superpower, Nigeria, has signed an agreement to increase trade between African countries. According to him, the signing of the agreement would offer Nigeria the opportunity to expand its trade borders in Africa, while indicating that the agreement corrected trade barriers that had limited expansion of activity in Nigeria. He said the opportunities offered by the agreement would make African goods more attractive and cheaper. Tariff and non-tariff barriers (the many documents that exporters have to carry lead to long delays at African borders) make intra-African trade more expensive than Africa`s with other regions. In comparison, the level of African trade with other continents has historically been much higher. It is unclear whether the Nigerian leader`s concerns were reflected in the agreement he signed. Including Nigeria and Benin, 54 AU countries have signed since March 2018, when 44 countries signed the agreement in Kigali, the Rwandan capital. Only Eritrea is expected. “We are shocked by the impunity and the blatant lack of consultation in the process that led to this process,” Congress president Ayuba Wabba said early last year, when it was clear that the government planned to sign the agreement with other African countries.

He believes that the AfCFTA is an “extremely dangerous and radioactive neoliberal policy” that ennicates the fate of Nigerian workers. Buhari responded that the AfCFTA would have both negative and positive effects in Nigeria. The president said free trade is good as long as it is fair and equitable and Nigeria, as Africa`s largest economy and most populous country, cannot rush the deal. In March 2018, at the 10th Extraordinary Meeting of the African Union on the AfCFTA, three separate agreements were signed: the African Continental Free Trade Agreement, the Kigali Declaration; and the Protocol on the Free Movement of Persons. . . . .

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