By Uzor Odigbo
The National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) has described the recently signed African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement by President Muhammadu Buhari as economic suicide for Nigeria .
Founder NAGAFF, Dr. Boniface Aniebonam, in a statement, said the continental trade agreement deal would be an economic danger to the nation , that may further expose Nigeria to the danger of dumping substandard, fake and life endangering products.
Aniebonam noted that: “It is unthinkable to note that we signed into this agreement without ensuring that Nigerian made products can compete effectively with other manufacturers outside the country.
According to him, : “It is to us in NAGAFF that Nigeria signing up for the without due consideration to
metrological shortcomings in our local manufacturing content, shall be like opening our economy to further danger of dumping substandard, fake and life endangering products into Nigeria.
“There is no gainsaying the fact that Nigeria is a large market for African countries in particular and the world economy, in general.
While harping on how the country can benefit from the trade agreement, he reiterated that the government must ensure proactive measure to adequate quality assurance and standards in her products.
“In other words if Nigeria must benefit from AfCFTA we must ensure NMI is made to be adequately functional and proactive to quality assurance and standards.
“And for us in NAGAFF we have to continue to advise the government
through our public policy advocacy, the need for government to pay
greater attention to the informal sector groups than the present position wherein the government has continued with uncommon support for the organized private sector with their bogus and unverifiable economic inputs to the ailing economy.
NAGAFF Founder recalled that the ECOWAS Trade Liberalisation Scheme (ETLS) programmed left Nigeria in a badly bruised economic, due to the dumping of repackaged products originally manufactured outside Africa to Nigeria.
“At this juncture, it has become pertinent to take a flash back into
history, especially the ETLS programme, which eventually, left Nigeria
and its economy badly bruised. Nigeria has a large market no doubt.
“It ended up serving as a dumping ground for products from other
African countries which may have repackaged the products originally manufactured outside Africa.
“Let us take coffee as an example.
Coffee is primarily produced in France, but may have been imported
into countries like Cote d’ Ivoire, but repackaged and re-labelled as
being produced in Cote d’ Ivoire and exported to Nigeria enjoying zero tariff under ETLS.
“This is the source of our fear. That this might be the fate of Nigeria as other African countries, that depend solely on imports from Europe and other parts of the world, will import such
products into their countries, only to repackage and re-label them and again export them to Nigeria, paying little or no tariff under the AfCFTA”, he added.
