Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo has said the rest of Africa is waiting on Nigeria to sign the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (ACFTA).
Osinbajo made the statement on Monday in Abuja during the 8th Presidential Quarterly Business Forum held at the Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa.
He said, “The rest of Africa sees the enormous advantage of Nigeria’s participation; everybody is waiting for us naturally.
“And that is because they see a huge market, there are advantages of our being there, but we must ensure to get the best possible terms for Nigerian trade and commerce.”
Nigeria’s number two citizen added that the country was wary of unwholesome practices that might ruin the nation’s economy.
“The general results favor engagement but the concerns remain around improving the domestic environment for greater competitiveness, concerns of power supply and investment in infrastructure,” Osinbajo noted.
He said, “The only way to go is that we must fix the gap, we must keep the engine running, there is no time for us to say let’s wait, take down the entire time just to prepare.
“I think this is the time to go ahead and do something about it while we are taking into accounts all the issues that have been raised and making sure that we are negotiating well.
“For the first time Nigeria is actually engaged and we are leading the engagement, this is something that has never happened in the past.
“In the past, we found treaties that were negotiated nobody knew who negotiated them, nobody knew how they were done, nobody knew what was going on.”
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