President Muhammadu Buhari has made it clear that he would never sign any treaty that has no beneficial effect on the lives of Nigerians.
Apparently reacting to the insinuations made by the former President, Olusegun Obasanjo that if Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is voted President in 2019, he will quickly sign treaties with other countries, Buhari said: I will not sign any treaty without assessing the impact it will have on the lives of Nigerians.”
President Buhari, who spoke today, Monday, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja when he inaugurated the nation’s Committee for Impact and Readiness Assessment of the African Continental Free Trade Area (ACFTA), said that Nigeria will henceforth take its time and breakaway from the past practice where treaties were signed without considering the needed positive gains for the country.
“We are determined to breakaway form the past practice of committing Nigeria to treaties without a definite implementation plan to actualise the expected benefit while mitigating the risks.
“We cannot go back to the days of signing agreements without understanding and planning for the consequences of such actions and our country being the worst for it.
“Few months ago I directed a nationwide stakeholders’ engagement on the Africa Free Trade Continental Area Agreement to understand the true impact of this agreement on Nigeria and Nigerians, considering the existing domestic and regional policies as it relates to trade.
“From the consultation, the key issues raised by stakeholders were abuse of rules of origin, smuggling arising from difficulties in border controls, unqualified impact of legacy preferential trade agreements, low capacity and capability of local businesses to conduct international trade, costly finance, insufficient energy and transport logistics infrastructure but our Economic recovery and Growth Plan is addressing these issues.”
The President charged the committee to concentrate on the issues raised during the nationwide consultations in order to find lasting solutions to them.
“Your task as members of the Impact and Readiness Assessment of the African Continental Free Trade Area Committee is to address the issues raised during the stakeholders’ consultations on the Africa Continental free trade Agreement. You are expected to develope short, medium and long term measures that will address any challenges arising there from.”
He said that Nigeria’s vision for intra-African trade is for a free movement of made in Africa goods.
