By Merit Ibe
Nigeria’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Yusuf Maitama Tuggar, has called on the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to foster the delivery of goods and services to the people, enable the growth of the private sector, and promote a free-market economy to generate investments and build capacity.
The Minister spoke at the West Africa Economic Summit (WAES) in Abuja, which had in attendance Heads of State, Ministers, top government functionaries, traditional leaders, members of the Senate, and the diplomatic corps, among others.
According to him, the summit’s objective is to reset the vision for the economic future of West Africa, which is an ambitious target that requires the creative talents, enterprise, and ingenuity of the people of the region.
“We are here to build on that enabling environment that already exists, and not reinvent the wheel. As an economic community, West Africa enjoys the freedom of movement and the framework to facilitate trade, food, electricity, and integrated transport corridors. Our job today is to build on what we have and find new ways that add momentum, peace, research, stability, prosperity, and growth,” the Minister remarked.
Tuggar affirmed that before the independence movement and colonial cartography, the people of this region related and traded not through treaties but through brotherhood and trust.
“We still believe in markets that thrive because of effective collaboration, supply, and demand, regulated by acceptable parameters. Let’s not forget that in 2024, West Africa exported goods valued at over $166 billion, yet only 8.6 percent of that trade remains within our borders. Imports followed the same pattern, heavily tilted towards partners outside the continent,” he stated.
He further put forward that machinery and manufactured goods from China, India, the United States, and the European Union dominated the region’s imports, while it continued to export processed raw materials. “This trajectory is not unattainable, and the issue is not just the past but orientation. As governments and states in the region, we need to do more to make it easy— and the activities which the informal sector brings with it, the economies of scale, and other efficiencies— that will accelerate growth and help our entrepreneurs. And this is already happening,” Tuggar avowed.
He called on the region to see the future and take control of its destiny by demonstrating that West Africa can deliver the states where government, industries, and other stakeholders can meet and make deals without shivering from one summit to another.
The Minister further added that West Africa has the skill, talent, and critical mass that no individual state alone can match and should be part of the global revolution of change with advancements in technology and other sectors of development.
The vision for the summit, he pointed out, came from President Bola Ahmed Tinubu when he took over as ECOWAS chairman in 2023, due to his background in the private sector and public life experience. As a well-travelled leader, he was convinced of the urgency of the moment.