Intra-Africa Trade

Africans must learn by Tulasi! We are witnessing trade tariffs flying across the world. While powerful and rich countries are retaliating, some are finding ways to protect themselves. Left exposed and defenseless are African countries now looking for ignored African trade partners, alternate foreign partners or other means of absorbing the shock. An African proverb taught us that a wise crippled man does not wait until the last minute to flee from impending danger (war).

We have been preaching Intra-Africa Trade for almost a century, yet Africans with sweet tooth/teeth prefer shining or trending vanities outside their Continent; not for their worth or durability. The same natural resources that they bought for one British pound or one American dollar are sold back to Africans for a hundred! Keeping gullible Africans buyers in the perpetual Deficit of 99 British pounds or American dollars.

Indeed, most African countries now measure their economic progress by the value of their currencies to Western currencies, mainly British pound and American dollar. The problem with chasing the British pound and American dollar is that the African countries do not have control or ability to print; it is like chasing a ghost! The whole purpose of Devaluation is to buy natural resources as cheap as possible. Turn into finished goods and sell it back at huge profits.

Those who claim imports are not the problem: we just have to increase our exports, put the cart before the horse. These are people who have nothing to sell or offer in order to pay for their frivolous tastes. Most of us rely on our raw natural resources whose prices are determined by foreign buyers. How hard is it to understand that our cravings and indulgence for Swiss chocolates, British Rose Royce or American fashions is draining our sweat, blood and fortune?

We just prefer to be trendy to be recognized as part of the global world without any local contribution adapted in what we patronize and consume. We must appreciate our local Afrobeat stars that snug into Western entertainment culture and captured their Youths. It is not that we do not have other contributors in Arts and Sciences; breaking into their markets without being usurped or stolen. It is more difficult without going through their Youth culture.

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1EwNtPWL6T/ This lack of sense for business before pleasure, immediate gratification like children in a candy store kill our ability to generate wealth or even maintain natural wealth for the present and future generations. All avarice boils down to a few privileged Africans and their cronies spending what they don't earn, like drunken sailors. Since the establishment of the European Union over thirty years ago, they continue to have challenges. The arbitrary trade wars and Ukraine War changed tribal wars among Europeans.

Intra-African Trade is the first step we must take before we can tackle the problem of Devaluation that reduced African currencies into Zimbabwe dollars. Most of the developing countries that have tried, including the BRIC countries to adopt another international trading currency are yet to succeed. Gaddafi tried and failed because he was promised an alternate path to nuclear power, if he exposed and rejected an offer from Pakistan.

“Intra-Africa trade could double in the next five years, says the Secretary General of African Continental Free Trade Area. More needs to be done to enable the continent of Africa to have the infrastructure that we need so that these goods can transit through borders seamlessly, efficiently, based on the rules that we have agreed to. So, we look forward to the operation of the Lobito corridor (a railway project that links Angola, Zambia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo).” All of these trade corridors that are embedded on world-class infrastructure will enable our continent to take drastic steps in boosting intra-Africa trade.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/07/africa/afcfta-secretary-general-mene-interview-spc

We must also be fair to Buhari when he was a Military Leader in Nigeria. He rejected Structural Adjustment from the International Monetary Fund and challenged his educated policy advisers to show him one country that had recovered from Devaluation. General Buhari stubbornly stuck to his decision to reject IMF demand for Structural Adjustment. He was overthrown in a palace coup by General Babangida who implemented the IMF Structural Adjustment in Nigeria.

Nigeria and other African countries have never recovered. The only country we know is China that devalued its currency on its own terms to sell its cheap manufactured finished goods. China, a Nuclear Power, cannot be bullied into submission like Gadhafi! Meanwhile, Africans are distracted by comparing their currencies to what it was when a head of state was there to what it is after he left.

The new generation of Africans do not understand the reason African Intellectual Activists that gained Independence, banned the use of foreign currencies locally. It was the only time African currencies had value. Yet, many Oxford and Harvard trained African economists agreed with their colleagues that African markets should be liberalized. Which country in the whole world liberalized and opened their markets to the world?

Unfortunately, the fight in Nigeria today is who should have access to subsidized foreign currencies from the Central Bank. Those privileged to have access directly to the Central Bank are turned into instant millionaires and billionaires simply by “round tripping”. They buy their foreign from the Central Bank and sell at a profit at the Black Markets. These are Bureau du Change created by foreign currencies dealers that make gigantic profit without sweat.

The taunted achievement by the present Government is that they have leveled the playing field since the price of foreign currencies is the same at parallel markets or at the Central Banks. Well, they have a point. But until African countries curb their excessive liberal imports for luxuries and insignificant toothpicks as goods they must have, Africa will be recessing backward from where the hard working intellectual Freedom Fighters left us.

   Comments0