Abolaji Adebayo 
Despite being the giant of Africa, Nigeria’s economy has continued to slide, even as economic experts ascribe this to a lack of foreign policy that supports international and external trade.
Nigeria’s economic potential is constrained by many structural issues, including inadequate infrastructure, tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade, obstacles to investment, lack of confidence in currency valuation, and limited foreign exchange capacity.
The overall objective of Nigeria’s trade policy Is to diversify the country’s export base and to continue to liberalise the import trade.
In a chat with New Telegraph, a former Director General of National Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA) Dr. John Isemede, said the foreign policies were made to encourage importation and not exportation.
He said: “Nigeria is a giant of Africa which is not in doubt but we take all the responsibilities of other countries. And we don’t tailor it to trade in the sense that America will go to ABCDEs America, America, America, all what we did in Liberia, in Sierria Leone, in Angola.
I was in Namibia, today Ghanians are closing shops, including Nigerian shops. Is trade part of our foreign policy?”
According to him, Nigeria only signs some international trade agreements without preparing for exportation.
Speaking about the recently launched Guided Trade Initiative under the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), Isemede said Nigeria could not make use good of the agreement, saying the country is not well prepared for exportation.
“The Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement will not work, I can say it a million times. Because this is not the first agreement we are signing.
From 1960 to the present day, the military ruled for 24 years, if we have to count from 1960, while the civilian by October will have ruled for 36 years.
“We have signed agreement under AGOA with a duty free of over six to 7000 products, Nigeria for 25 years, we cannot engage AGOA.
Nigeria signed agreement under the ACP with the EU even before the British pulled out. What is our trade balance?
Because when you talk of trade it is import and export, they are taking produce from us and some others.
We are the one importing and not exporting, they are not taking anything, and that is why I was crying that we cannot go into this agreement.
“What are you producing here? Where are your equipment. They will suffocate. For 22 years now Nigeria has not issued one certificate of origin of goods under a trade agreement with Egypt, Turkey, Iran, Indonesia, Malaysia, and others. Nigeria cannot engage any of these.
Then we have bilateral, multilateral whatever with India, with China and with so many countries – our neighbouring countries.
What are we seeing, it is only import. Today, India is using the Bank of India, their own bank to export which is import here. The Chinese have built their own structure from their own country to engage us here.
That is why I say this argument may go in the way of other agreements. “The second one is that, how did we put this thing together?
There are 46 countries in Europe but when you talk of EU bloc, there are only 27 countries. Why I’m saying the AfCFTA will not work is because how do you bring 55 countries together under one umbrella?
That was a failure we had in ECOWAS. So, how do you think AfCFTA will work when it’s formed like a tea party? “Another thing is that a lot of Nigerians don’t even know what we signed.
They think it is just import, import, import and borrowing. We are borrowing and importing from those who are producing and there is no deliberate or strategy of moving.
We can bring South Africa apples here, Titus sardines is coming from Morocco, tea is coming from Kenya. “In Benue State alone, we have 12 varieties of mango, which are the 13 varieties we have in the world.
We cannot even squeeze the water out and push to other countries. We can import apples because they’re not our mango. What is balance of trade, and what is balance of payment?
