AfCFTA Appoints Three Nigerians as Members of Advisory Council

Three Nigerians have been named as members of the 14-member Advisory Council of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). The 14-member advisory council has been set up to serve as the continent’s Trade and Industrial Development Advisory Council.

This update was revealed in a statement issued by the AfCFTA secretariat on Tuesday, 1st March 2022. The three Nigerians, according to the AfCFTA are Prof. Oyebanji Oyelaran-Oyeyinka, Dr Adeyemi Dipeolu and Ms Jane Ezirigwe.

The AfCFTA is a free trade area established in March 2018. The initiative was devised by the African Continental Free Trade Agreement among 54 of the 55 African Union nations making it the largest free-trade area in the world in terms of participating countries.

Initially, the AfCFTA agreement required members to clear tariffs from 90% of goods, thereby allowing free access to commodities, goods, and services across the continent. The agreement was also created to improve intra-African trade.

Statement by the AfCFTA reads in part: “This is imperative given the low levels of investments in industrial production, which is also a major contributor to the low percentage of intra-African trade. Africa has 17 percent of the global population and fastest-growing middle class but only accounts for 2.1 percent of global trade and three percent of the world’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). It is against this background that Secretary-General, Wamkele Mene convened a brainstorming workshop to discuss the matters of trade and industrial development, which led to his proposal to constitute an Advisory Council.”

Three Nigerians Named as Members

Prof. Oyebanji Oyelaran-Oyeyinka: Prof. Oyebanji is the Special Advisor to the President of the African Development Bank (AfDB) on Industrialisation. The prof is a globally respected leader in the field of development economics. He has contributed immensely to urbanisation and economic development.

Dr Adeyemi Dipeolu: Dipeolu is the Special Adviser to Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari on Economic Matters.

Ms Jane Ezirigwe: Ezirigwe is a research fellow at the Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (NIALS). Her research interest includes food and agriculture, law, human rights and development.

Other members of the 14-member council include Dr Arkebe Oqubay, a Senior Minister and Special Adviser to the Prime Minister of Ethiopia; Dr Rob Davies, former South African Minister of Trade and Industry; Dr Taffere Tesfachew, former director of the Division on Africa and Least Developed Countries, UNCTAD; Prof. Carlos Lopes, former Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa; Dr Celestin Monga, visiting Professor of Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government; Amb. Magda Shahin, Prof. Caroline Ncube; Prof. Fiona Tregenna, Dr Stephen Karingi, Dr Gainmore Zanamwe, and Prof. Faizel Ismail former Permanent Representative to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and author of “AfCFTA and Developmental Regionalism”.