By Nik Ogbulie
Curtain on the Intra-African Trade Fair 2023 fell just five days ago, after an class rehearsal of the 2018 edition on the same venue in Cairo, Egypt.
What has been instructive from the gathering of about 30,000 people is not the error-free delivery of the event better know as the most important economic event in Africa, but the roles played by major countries and institutions in Africa or what they failed to do to comprehensively propagate this economic development trend through which over 120 billion dollars have been invested into various growth channels as pioneered by Afreximbank since the last six years of iatf existence.
As a matter of fact, all African countries have very strong roles to play , but much is expected from the three countries whose economies are believed to have been in control of about 60% of the GDP of the entire Africa. The countries are Nigeria, South Africa and Egypt. These countries may not command better economic growth in Africa today, but they have remained largely rich and large based on their huge outlay of natural resources, overflowing levels of skills, large population space and emerging capital flows, in and out, of these great countries.
In other words, the impact of each of these three countries must be seen as the very major catalyst for the political and economic emancipation of Africa.For a typical Nigerian journalist who is always enormoured by Nigeria’s policy on Africa, the expectation would always be seen to reflect the tendency to lead whatever is African, and make great progress with it. This is why one wants to take a retrospection of the entire event which was a package of various developments that must make a progressive Africa. This becomes important because those who designed the IATF project were so careful to capture all channels of development as events that can be captured as a network. This is why the programme captures industrialization, export/import, finance , entertainment, agriculture and other forms of economic and social development on one hand , but not completely forgetting the issues of politics.
Nigeria taunted as the biggest economy in Afrixa with the largest population of over 230 million people and a huge landmass with great spread of revenue space, could be seen as not strongly into the opportunities offered by the event. There is no doubt that the new Nigeria government has a strong support to all Afreximbank activities but its private sector participation does not really reflect the level of activities in the country and the opportunities derivable.Reflecting on the participation of Nigeria in particular one would say that there is a decline because their level of exhibition did not compare with what they displayed in 2021, both in terms of human presence and institutional effort. In the last event , the Nigerian Sme/Msme space was overwhelming.
It really gave hope that the growing level of many medium sector participation offers bright future for intra-African trade since the instruction here is trade penitration among the countries.However, the big business outfits in Nigerua were not actively represented and did not express that tendency expected from a leading economy. It becomes so sad to watch an economy believed to possess some controlling and energising position to play lower than very small economies on issues they must take control of.In Cairo, one expected to see the big players like NLNG largely seen as a liquefied gas powerhouse for African countries or a Nimasa, Nigerian Shippers Council, Nigerian Ports authority that could be discussing common developments within the sphere of Shipping and regional transportation.
In Durban few years ago,there were long exhibition stands for information technology incubation and skills development from Nigeria, some of whom told me that they have opened reasonable level of contacts during the event but that line of exhibition was not present this time around. Many other lines of exhibition from Nigeria are missing and I feel that it was because many exhibitors from Nigeria are impatient and would not always want to go through the required route for real business growth. What I feel is that the Nigerian institutions incharge of rendering trade advisory such as NEPC, Chambers of commerce, manufacturers associations do not have the capacity to encourage manufacturers on what to do.I am of the opinion that advocacy on trade development must begin to gather more momentum and must be measured with what goes into the oil and gas sector, banking and finance, IT sector and services.
The consequence of Nigeria’s poor participation is that they are gradually missing the link between trade and development which has been considered as the major denominator for industrialization.In outings such as the Afreximbank events, Nigeria must bring its huge capacity to the fore and physically express the initial fears over a probable Nigerian take-over of the AfCFTA which rules provide a platform for internal optimization of export opportunities from the million MSMEs that are being nurtured for revenue growth, using the opportunities for forex.
Being a heavy importer, it must have given this development a serious participation if reduction in dollar cost to its economy is real. This may be the reason why major Nigerian trade banks must be part of the programme if only to explain how they can apply the PAPSS payment systemto what they do with their customers.I had thought that the CANEX end of the exhibition could be a Nigeria show just like what happened in South Africa in 2021, but never to be. CANEX has been taken over by the fringe economies who want to capitalise on new opportunities. I am aware that no IATF sensitization took place in Nigeria, other than the Afreximbank Road Show which took place only few weeks to the Cairo event. There are no sustained efforts to keep Nigerians abreast of the big event to Nigerians and that’s why they are found at the embassies begging for visa of any host country up to the last days of the event.
My interviews with three prominent Nigerian participant, Ahmed Mansur of Dangote Group, Engnr Emeka Okwuosa of OilServe and Obi Ezeude of Beloxxi Industries explain why Nigerian firms must seek new opportunities with this Afreximbank window. They are of the expectation that more Nigerians will continue to participate because of the innate advantages.On a lighter note, Ghana would not have continued to take home the prize on food with their jollof rice if more Nigerians have been involved. It is believed that Nigeria lost the “Jollof rice war” due to too much pepper because only a section of the Nigeria with proficiency in pepper dishes participated.
It is no more news to say that our new government has continued to travel all over the world in search of the elusive investors while a common trade among the 54 African countries could be a very good start. As a huge country Nigeria should apply its advantage of scale and flood Africa with its products. There was no notable Nigerian government effort in Cairo. Maybe, Algiers would be a renewal of their economic policy direction.
