EDITORIAL: Continental trade deal needs goodwill of all African states

The Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) signed by more than 40 African nations on Wednesday captures the dream of tens of millions, but faces huge obstacles along the way.

It could as well collapse even before take-off unless urgent and sustained measures are taken to make it a reality. To start with, the African Union needs to find ways of persuading the 11 out of 55 countries that failed to sign the initial agreement to get on board.

It is also very important that Nigeria and South Africa, which are the continent’s biggest and second-biggest economies respectively, are persuaded to join the free market area to make it more viable.

Nigeria, which potentially stands to make more gains than losses by joining the free market area, has made a false start by choosing to look inward when other countries signed the treaty. South Africa says it needs domestic consultations before putting pen to paper, this must be expedited.

Trade agreements are protracted and often bruising journeys. They involve a lot of give-and-take. Going by examples elsewhere, such as the recent British exit from the European Union after decades of membership, free market areas never gel into one homogenous zone.

There will always be happy moments and periods of squabbles, like in any marriage. But the EU experiment has particularly demonstrated that free market areas can generate jobs and wealth while underwriting peace among neighbours.

The African experiment will require a lot of goodwill and practicality to realise the founders’ aspirations.

As it is, movement across the continent is expensive and heavily restricted. Moving from one end of the continent to the other sometimes requires flying to Europe and the Middle East either due to lack of bilateral flying agreements or direct flights between destinations. There cannot be seamless trade where borders are closed.

Yet 27 countries refused to sign the free movement protocol, over misplaced fears of unwanted immigration. Africa also needs to industrialise to spur trade with its neighbours.

Majority of African countries export only minerals and raw agricultural commodities, which they cannot trade among themselves unless they invest in value addition to differentiate the end products.