African countries are trying to tear down barriers to commerce through a continent-wide trade pact, but developments in West Africa show some immediate neighbors prefer to keep the fences up.
While 54 of the 55 countries recognized by the African Union have signed the agreement that’s expected to eliminate cross-border tariffs on 90% of goods and facilitate movement of money and people, some 27 members have yet to ratify it, including Nigeria, the continent’s biggest economy.
Hundreds of trucks have been parked at Benin’s border with eastern neighbor Nigeria for more than a year. That’s because the government in Abuja abruptly curbed imports in a move to throttle widespread smuggling of products that were sabotaging local industries and inflaming insecurity. Companies have had to resort to Lagos’ congested port — bedeviled by delays and inefficiencies — to move goods.
Nigeria hasn’t budged from its position despite negotiations, and traders within the country and in neighboring nations are reeling from the impact of the move that’s spurred diplomatic rifts. Making economic matters worse, protests in Lagos in recent days are causing wider concerns about civil unrest in Africa’s most-populous city.
In Ghana’s capital, Accra, officials have shut Nigerian-owned stores to comply with a law that restricts foreign participation in its retail trade. A meeting between presidents of both countries in September didn’t yield a resolution.
The difficult relationship between West Africa’s leading Anglophone countries dates back to 1969, when Ghana issued an alien expulsion order that affected mostly Nigerians. In turn, Nigeria repeated the same for Ghana in 1983 after international oil markets crashed and thousands of Ghanaians working in the industry returned home.
The latest actions embody the hurdles that must be overcome if Africa is to fulfill its vision of instituting a continental free-trade agreement. For now, protectionism remains the name of the game for West Africa’s economic powerhouses, whose governments are preoccupied with overcoming the devastation wrought by the coronavirus.
—Tope Alake in Lagos
Charted Territory
South Korea’s early trade data showed exports falling in October driven by fewer working days, while daily average shipments continued to recover on resilient tech demand. Exports fell 5.8% in the first 20 days of the month from a year earlier, according to customs office data released Wednesday.
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