The Federal Government on Tuesday said apart from wealth creation, the nation’s moribund industries will be resuscitated through the $3.4tn African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement among the 54 countries in the continent.
The Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Otunba Niyi Adebayo, said this during the National Action Committee on AfCFTA’s sensitisation of stakeholders in Kaduna State on Tuesday.
The minister, represented by the Director, Trade Department of the ministry, Alhaji Abubakar Aliyu, said the AfCFTA was all about promoting industrialisation in the continent.
He noted the agreement could only succeed when all Nigerians take the opportunity to grab the advantage of the agreement.
According to the minister, when Nigeria key into the agreement, then insecurity, unemployment in the land, will abate. He noted that once Nigerians youths were engaged in trade, there would not be insecurity.
The minister said, “The agreement is about promoting industrialisation among ourselves.
“The agreement can only succeed when the states key into it. It is important that all the states key to it. Not everybody will take their products to Africa.
“The first question we should ask ourselves is: what is the source of insecurity? It has root in unemployment; so we need to tackle unemployment.
“As you are tackling unemployment, if you are producing and you don’t have where to sell, then the product will fail.
“You remember when people come from all over Africa to buy from Nigeria. The more people are engaged in job creation, the fewer people will be available to terrorism and criminal activities.
“The agreement is what will guide trade in the country. Nobody said this agreement will solve our problem. There were industries that were valuable before, now they are not again.”
Secretary, the National Action Committee on AfCFTA, Francis Anatogu, said The National Action Committee on AfCFTA commenced nationwide awareness and sensitisation tour in line with its mandate to prepare Nigeria to take advantage of the AfCFTA Agreement while mitigating its threats to the Nigerian economy.
He said, “Our mandate at the National Action Committee is to coordinate the activities of private and public sectors at federal and sub-national levels to implement AfCFTA for the benefit of Nigeria and Nigerians.
“Our strategy is to work with the states based on their areas of comparative advantages and priorities as a way of building up our national export trade and creating jobs at the grassroots level.”
He added, “The core objective of the AfCFTA is to create a single market for goods, services, and free movement of persons in order to deepen the economic integration of the African continent.
“The AFCFTA is expected to deliver an integrated continental market of 1.27 billion consumers with an aggregate GDP of $3.4tn.”
He added that Nigeria constituted a significant portion of the figures largely spread across the states.
