African leaders must reverse self-inflicted pains, experts advise

 

• Say Africans must consume what it produce else

By Henry Uche, Lagos

Experts drawn from economics, corporate and public administration, management, leadership and human development have charged African leaders to urgently reverse its self – inflicted pains the continent have suffered over decades.

They made this charge recently in Lagos ahead the Third Intra -African Trade Fair (IATF 2023) – The AfCFTA Marketplace, taking place in Arab Republic of Egypt from 9 to 15 November this year, put together by African Export -Import Bank (Afrexmbank) in collaboration with African Union Commission and AfCFTA Secretariat.

These experts who believe Nigeria and Africa are the bottleneck to their economic growth and development, expressed sadness that African countries are very rich in human and material resources, yet the people suffers untold hardship (resource curse). This is evident in the continent’s low contribution to global GDP and other debilitating indices. Thus, they must be reminded that no other person or country will solve African problems, but Africans themselves.

 

A feasible way out of the woods, they said would be if Africans begin to support and patronize their local products, this they said requires laws and sound policies design to make it compulsory for everyone to patronize home – made goods and services, from the government to the locals; but the envisioned economic boom would be an elusive if the region still ignores its dilapidated infrastructure like power supply, bad roads network, logistics challenges among others.

“Misplaced priorities by economic and political leaders have dragged the region to the mud. This was as a result of choosing incompetent leaders. If we can jettison politics and focus on human resources development, employ technocrats and turn around our economies, we can can stand shoulder to shoulder with other continents.

“We must stop foreign countries from grabbing our human resources and still make us a dumping ground for substandard products. If we must deliberately and radically pay a conscientious attention to our manufacturing sector, then consume what we produce and produce what we consume, only then shall we get out of this obvious economic dungeon” they affirmed.

 

The fair which aims to facilitate ease of movement of goods across Africa is expected to have over 1600 exhibitors, 35000 visitors, 75 exhibiting countries and over $43bn in trade and investment deals with sectors like: Manufacturing, automotive, health / Pharmaceuticals, tourism, construction and infrastructure to be represented.

 

Others are the creative/ intellectual property industry, engineering, energy and power, mining, transport, ICT, Finance, Agro/ agriculture, diaspora, education, ecetera, with Business to Business and business to Government sessions, all are geared to ensure healthy collaboration and competition to achieve the objectives of African Continental Free Trade Area, AfCFTA.