Jani Ibrahim: Nigeria’s Impact at IATF Remarkable
The 2nd Deputy National President of Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA) and a board member of the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), Jani Ibrahim in this interview hailed the country’s participation at the recently concluded Intra African Trade Fair (IATF) in South Africa. Ugo Aligo present the excerpts
Nigeria’s Participation at IATF
I am impressed with the massive showing at the fair. I think the IATF this year has been very successful and the impact on Nigerians or whichever the participation has been remarkable.
Despite the challenges of visa issuance but we have one of the biggest delegations, the best pavilion. We are having very good responses but the area the government should focus on is to devolve to private sector from now on. They have put the whole structure in place for it to look more like the private sector. Nigeria, as a strong powerhouse of the continent, needed to be in that room where all decisions that affects the region are being taken. What we came here to experience in South Africa, the knowledge is never lost and we have seen the type of responses some of our exhibitors have been receiving, very encouraging responses.
If we didn’t take part, most of these experiences would have been lost on our exhibitors. Africa is where we should try to show our strength and dominance because we have had a lot of rejections of our products going into Europe and other places. But Africa is not that complicated, with the specifications, we are good to go unlike the unnecessary bottlenecks that are in international, European, and American market. They’re not as difficult with Africa because we’re almost the same. So this should be the testing ground for us. The learning curve should be here, where we can make improvement both in our packaging and in our presentations. Africa is the testing ground for us and we must take advantage of it.”
Readiness to Compete in AFCTA
It is like everything in life, we can never be ready, the earlier we plunge ourselves into it and see how we can wangle our ways and see how we can be developing the necessary skill set infrastructure and capital.
For instance, we failed to sign as at the time we ought to have signed and we lost quite a lot. For instance, we lost the headquarters of AfCFTA to Ghana, we lost even what we pioneered, we lost the impetus and the momentum to drive the trade agreement but we eventually signed. What did we learn, and what was different to have made us to sign.
If we had committed that time, we could have worked out the issues. So my take is we must get into the race and the earlier we get into the race, unless we are on the table, we can’t take part in the AfCFTA meal.
NACCIMA’s Take On AFCTA
We were at the forefront asking government to sign, to get on board quickly, of course the manufacturers had their fears and they had their own issues in regards to infrastructure and all of that but you see competition must be there, competition keeps you on your toes. We cannot be afraid to compete, we cannot afford to close shops and protect simply because we are afraid of what other people would do. We must take the battles to them and that’s the only way to fight in this harsh economic environment. It is a harsh environment so we must take the battles to them.
View on Protectionism?
If we are expecting that government will protect, we are members of the WTO. We cannot begin to overprotect. Our manufacturers are rising to the occasion, this is what should happen and it should even put us on our feet because by the time we have “Protectionism” it is complacency. You’re introducing complacency and whether they like it or not, we must rise to the occasion and that we keep us to be guarding our markets also because we don’t want people to be dumping in our markets so we need to know all the rules, the rules of origin, we must be conversant with them. So it would be wrong to say you want to prevent competition, not in this world. The world is a global village. It is global. We don’t want that.
Fear of Nigeria Being a Dumping Ground
Somehow products will continue to find their ways into our markets. We must be prepared for competition, competition is a must, it must come so we should get ourselves and prepared. There are some people because of the agitations of manufacturers, the agitations of the private sector, government has been very responsible.
Governments Incentives to Private Sector
Before we didn’t even have tax credits for people to go and build roads and infrastructure but it is part of the responsiveness of government and the interchange and exchanges between private sector and government that’s why some of these things are coming up.
The President has signed an executive order now. Executive order 5 about using what is Made in Nigeria, giving Nigerians the opportunity, so there are so many opportunities but unless we are able to engage with government and confront them, Yes, Nigeria is the biggest market, it is the market everybody wants but it doesn’t now mean that we should now go and dominate other markets.
Infact, I think the other African countries are even worried more about Nigeria they are afraid of Nigeria coming to take over their business. They’re afraid and here we are, we are also saying that too. We must take our grounds, take our battles elsewhere, from a red ocean, let’s make it blue ocean. You see what is happening to those in Kenya saying that Nigerians are the ones dominating their markets. So if we go and take positions in those markets, how will dumping take place? It’s not possible? I think it is parochial to just be thinking Nigerian now in the days of AfCFTA. We should be thinking Africa.
So if people sit in Nigeria and think they only want to be producing in Ogun state and take it to Sokoto, they have missed the point. We have completely missed the point. We should be thinking that we are producing in Ogun state, Kwara state or somewhere and our target is somewhere in Sierra Leone or our target is in Malawi. That’s the way. The mindset has to change. So we need to change the mindset of our people and encourage more than any other thing else.
Small Scale Businesses
Our medium and small scale entrepreneurs are the people that can make it for us. As we can see from here, young people are all over the place doing business. Our creative industry is number one, while we are here today, the Egyptians came trying to take information on how we can bring our creative people together. That they think the Egyptians will love Nigerian culture. That they should please bring them to Egypt so these are the things. So it is in this kind of fora that we can be able to sell them to the world. And besides, we are being parochial; we should give the opportunity to the young people and see what they can do. We don’t need to define the rules for them. Just give them the field to go and play.
