Nigeria’s Diversification Test: Can AfCFTA Deliver More Than Promises?
By OBIOMA TORI
AfCFTA as Nigeria’s Economic Re-Orientation
NIGERIA did not enter the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) by accident or political impulse. Its accession followed a deliberate pause, stakeholder consultations, and a late-stage review of national interests. After initially suspending the process, Nigeria eventually ratified the pact on 4 November 2020 and deposited its instrument on 15 December 2020, becoming the 34th State Party and the largest economy in the trade zone. Trading under AfCFTA officially began on 1 January 2021, marking the start of Africa’s most ambitious market integration experiment.
But beyond the celebratory communiqués, 2025 exposed AfCFTA’s true complexity for Nigeria — a country attempting to rewrite an oil-dependent growth model with a trade-led diversification blueprint.
“Dumping Ground No More”: Nigeria’s Manufacturing Anxiety
The AfCFTA framework was designed not just to expand trade but to prevent Africa from becoming a marketplace for imported finished goods. For Nigeria, this clause is existential. The country’s industrial base has historically struggled with import dominance, foreign exchange shocks, and weak regional export penetration. In 2025, trade analysts flagged a worrying number: formal intra-African trade still hovers around seven percent — a sign that Africa remains largely fragmented commercially despite the removal of tariffs on paper.
Nigeria’s Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment responded with a two-pronged strategy:
-
institutional coordination through the National Action Committee (NAC) and
-
private sector empowerment using technology, notably the Nigeria–East and Southern Africa Market Intelligence Tool (MIT).
Officials insist MIT will give Nigerian exporters real-time data, market demand signals, and logistics insights for eastern and southern Africa — a region where Nigerian businesses have long had more ambition than presence.
Liquidity, Logistics, and the Uganda Airlines Bridge
Perhaps the most unconventional element of Nigeria’s AfCFTA push in 2025 was its alignment with regional carriers, including Uganda Airlines. Aviation industry sources say this partnership is not symbolic — it is a logistical recalibration aimed at linking trade routes, cargo capacity, and market intelligence between Nigeria and the East/Southern African corridors.
For Nigerian SMEs, especially those in manufacturing, agriculture, and creative industries, this is the difference between a free trade agreement and a functional export pipeline.
The Investigation Nigerians Are Not Asking: Who Is Coordinating What?
Despite official optimism, investigators tracking Nigeria’s AfCFTA execution raise structural questions:
-
Legal-policy alignment — how harmonised are Nigeria’s domestic laws with AfCFTA protocols on investment, competition policy, and intellectual property?
-
Regulatory consistency — can Nigerian exporters trade smoothly when African countries still maintain unwritten barriers at ports, borders, and customs desks?
-
Infrastructure readiness — Nigeria talks industrialisation, but do its roads, rail, power grids, and port capacity talk back?
These unanswered questions may define 2026 more than the trade pact itself.
