Taiwo Hassan 
A former Chairman of Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) Small and Medium scales Enterprise Group (SMEG), Dr. Jon Tudy Kachikwu, has said African exporters operating under AGOA window are no longer being honoured and granted easy access in agricultural product exports to the United States Government.
Kachikwu, a Nigerian entrepreneur and local exporter, who has been into business in the US and exporting goods from Nigeria for 38 years, told New Telegraph that he got the wind of the AGOA report termination for African exporters from the US Ministry of Trade in Washington DC. Kachikwu said: “Yes, that is true, AGOA will be a thing of the past in Africa.
That is certain. you know is being sponsored by the American Government just like USAID. “Now that they have already stopped funding USAID, obviously AGOA is already affected because my contact in Washington DC, who use to do most of our paperwork, when I had about all these things, I called her and I said Esther, with what is happening, this AGOA, is there any future for AGOA? “She said right now, everything is standstill because they are not funding AGOA anymore.
She said they had put everything on hold. And of course, most of them are going to their houses pending when they get another job.
“Anyways, government will still take care of them. Government will still be paying them from their social securities and other things they are going to gain from government.
“You don’t lose totally in America, because government is their gods. Just as the way we worship God in Nigeria, is the way Americans worship their government and dollar. Because dollar and government are their gods.
“That is the reason they don’t go to church. Because what you are praying for God to do for you back home in Nigeria, American government is doing it for Americans.”
He continued: “Just because of one single American citizen kidnapped, American government will send drone, send war ship or whatever the arsenal to go and get that person out. Or they would bomb that country or sanction the country economically.
“This is to show you American government values its citizens.” Speaking on whether Nigerian manufacturers and exporters have complied to the US 14 per cent tariff, the former Chairman of LCCI SMEG said: “As for our manufacturers, exporters and others, whether we have complied to the 14 per cent tariff.
We really don’t have any choice. “I tell you when beans was very expensive in Nigeria, I went to some African countries and I imported white beans from Madagascar.
Did you know that American markets did not accept that white beans? They were asking where is the Nigerian beans? Nigerian white beans is better.
The same thing is ijebu garri, our palm oil is top notch, it is in high demand despite being expensive because if you go to Guinea, you go to Liberia, you go to Cote d’Ivoire, their palm oil is cheaper than Nigeria’s palm oil.
But look at Okomu oil, Okomu oil is unbeatable anytime, anywhere in US and Canada. “So you can see that manufacturers don’t have any choice than to adhered to the US 14 per cent tariff.”
