Issues
Is AGOA Worth Africa’s While?
Twelve years after the introduction of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) by the United States Government, the African Union (AU) has called for an extension of the programme beyond its 2015 expiry date.
Making the call at the opening of the ministerial meeting of the 2013 US-sub Saharan Africa Trade and Economic Cooperation Forum (otherwise known as The AGOA Forum) in Addis Ababa, last week, the AU Chairperson and Ethiopian Prime Minister, Haile Mariam Desalegn, was said to have suggested an extension of the programme for another 15 to 20 years even as he regretted the continent’s inability to exploit the full potentials of the Act in spite of significant improvements in trade relations with the Americans, so far.
According to Desalegn, African countries have been inhibited by the many difficulties they encounter in accessing the US market. He also said that exports under AGOA had been restricted to a few products which often raised doubts over the Americans’ sincerity of purpose.
The African leader, however, expressed the hope that there are potentials for improvement in the coming years.
AGOA came into existence as part of the US Trade and Development Act of 2000 signed by former President Bill Clinton on May 18
th of that year. His successor, former President George W. Bush, later amended it on August 6, 2002 to expand the list of items that could be imported duty and quota-free into the US market from eligible sub Saharan African countries.
Going by available records, AGOA exists to facilitate trade between the US and participating African countries in a manner that is designed to bring about reduction in poverty and an increase in economic progress while creating stronger markets in these African nations.
It is also aimed at creating job opportunities and lead to a reformation of these African economies through the creation of new incentives for good governance, sustained business enterprises and investments.
Over 40 sub Saharan African countries are currently doing business with the Americans under the terms of AGOA. Foremost among these are Nigeria, Angola, South Africa, Gabon and Chad. Other leading participants include Ghana, DR Congo, Mauritius, Cameroon, Kenya and Ethiopia.
Products that are eligible for export by participating African nations include oil and gas, mineral fuels, precious stones and metals, textile and apparels, shoes, handbags and other leather items, tropical fruits, among several others.
On their side, the Americans engaged mainly in the export items classed under machinery and parts, transportation equipment, cereals, aircraft and parts, and electrical machinery.
The report also showed that exports between sub Saharan African countries and the US rose from $8.15 billion in 2001 to $53.8 billion in 2011 with about 90 per cent coming from oil products.
But more up-to-date statistics provided in a speech at the AGOA Forum by the US Trade Representative, Mr. Michael Froman, reveals that there has been a decline in the shipments of oil, mineral fuels, precious stones and metals resulting in a 33 per cent shortfall to $49.7 billion. And of this amount, reports say that only $34.9 billion was traded under AGOA terms.
In terms of job creation, the AU account claims that between 2001 and 2011, trade under AGOA generated about 350,000 direct jobs and one million indirect engagements in Africa, especially in the textile and apparel sector.
Froman readily agreed with this claim: “Behind the billions of dollars in exports generated by AGOA are hundreds of thousands of jobs that have helped African men and especially women to support their families in ways that once seemed impossible.”
But like Desalegn, US President Barack Obama does not believe that AGOA is as yet an economic uhuru tale. In fact, he thinks that the Act has not gone far enough in helping African exporters become more competitive.
Obama’s views were made known during his recent tour of three African nations. A Bloomberg report had quoted the American leader as saying that the US wants to help African countries ease trade and investment barriers by further simplifying Customs procedures and improving the flow of goods across borders, among other measures.
Indeed, much as Froman and the AU can continue to attest to the number of jobs already created by AGOA, there are critics who argue that these jobs earn paltry incomes, hardly enough to support the usually large African household. Some have even claimed that much of the growth recorded so far has been in the oil sector which is known to create few jobs, with most of them going to skill expatriates.
Again, AGOA is an American creation and, like almost all other Western initiatives before it, the idea is intended to fully exploit Africa’s human and natural resource endowments while creating marginal, if any, benefits for the latter. Only little else can account for the wide price disparity between products emanating from the US and those shipped from Africa.
Desalegn’s complaint that AGOA has created very limited space for African products in the US market runs counter to America’s claim that over 6,400 items had been listed to enjoy zero import duty and quota-free entry under the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) in the American Trade Act.
In truth, the fault may not rest entirely on Washington, DC. This is because most of the AGOA products originating from sub-Saharan Africa already have supply-side quota restrictions placed on them as part of some price-control measures by the international commodity unions to which their producers are known signatories.
For example, as a member of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) with a maximum daily production quota of 2.4 million barrels of crude oil, Nigeria can hardly be expected to export more than this daily production limit even in the event of an enduring energy crisis in the US, and with AGOA blowing at full throttle.
Africans may never get to realise full benefits from AGOA due to the frequent political, social and economic disruptions caused by coups, wars and youth restiveness in parts of the continent.
The Congos have remained perennially turbulent since after gaining political Independence in the 1960s. The diamond regions of Liberia and Sierra Leone still bear fresh scars of the recent fratricidal wars fought to establish control over the precious stone. Neighbouring Cote d’Ivoire, Senegal and Mali are still struggling to survive the peace after their recent respective political skirmishes.
In Nigeria, such disturbances had resulted from the militant activities of some agitated Niger Delta youth. But now, it has to be admitted that the al Qaeda-backed Boko Haram sect is indeed causing so much concern in the land, especially in the North.
Related to this are the activities of con men which seem to undermine AGOA’s aim of attracting to the continent, American firms that may be eager to help build stronger commercial partnerships with African entrepreneurs. The sordid experiences of some of these potential foreign investors in the hands of Internet fraudsters, impostors at high places, kidnappers and outright armed robbers are better left to the imagination.
Even so, with China offering what seems like a more robust business landscape to many sub-Saharan African countries, AGOA surely needs to do more in order to sustain whatever interests it may have roused in these countries, so far. This scenario is also not assisted by reports that the European Union (EU) is already negotiating to give preferential market access, known as Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) to countries across the continent before October 2014.
This is an open letter to the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Chief Nyesom Wike.
Your Excellency,
Sir, ordinarily, I would not be writing an open letter to you, but like a wise man once said, “Silence would be Treason.” So I prefer to stay alive than face the consequences of silence in the face of crime. With each passing day, and as the socio-political tides continue to turn, it has become more pertinent that more people speak up in a concerted MANNER to prevent the death of our party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), as we appear to be, in the words of W. B. Yeats, “turning and turning in the widening gyre” heading for an end where the falcon will no longer hear the falconer
It is unfortunate that since losing control of the Federal Government, with the loss of President Goodluck Jonathan at the poll in 2015, our party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has continued on a downward spiral. It is much more painful, that where it is expected that leaders within the party should rise to the challenge and put an end to this decline of our great party, some have instead taken up roles as its undertaker.
It will be hypocritical to claim aloofness to what I believe is your grouse with the PDP and I am not a hypocrite. It will be uncharitable on my part to discountenance the role you have played in strengthening the PDP from 2015 up until the last Presidential primaries of the party. It is my belief that your grouse against certain members of the party who you perceived worked against the party and abandoned it in 2015 and then came around much later to take control of the party, is justified. Also know that your decision to remain in the Party and stifle its progress on the other hand, as a sort of payback, stands condemned. For a man of your pedigree and stature, it is a dishonorable act, highly dishonorable and stands as testimony against all you claim to stand for.
At least, it can be argued that those who you hold this grudge against, abandoned the party completely and did not sit back while actively working to destroy it from within. But what then can be the argument on your own part, seeing that those you are currently working with against your party are the same people who set in motion, and executed surgically, the plans that not only ended our Party’s leadership at the centre, but ended up dislodging the first Niger Deltan to occupy Aso Rock as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. Is this not akin to “cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face?” That will be worse than folly. Let us not throw away the baby with the bath water because we do not like the soap used in bathing the baby. It will be a grave mistake.
Honourable Minister, sir, it is rather unfortunate that of all people, you have also decided to play the role of an undertaker not only for our party, but for our dear Rivers State.
I will like to take you down memory lane a little. Let me remind you of your emergence as Guber candidate of the PDP in Rivers State, against all fairness and justice in 2014. You will remember that despite the reality being that you as an Ikwerre man was poised to replace a fellow Ikwerre man in Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi in our multiethnic state, Rivers people overwhelmingly stood by you and pushed for your emergence as Executive Governor of Rivers State in 2015. I dare say that your popularity in the entire Niger Delta region was at an all-time high at this point.
I want you to understand why you were loved across board leading to your eventual emergence as Governor of Rivers State in 2015; it was because when it looked like all were against the second term ambitions of the first Niger Delta man to emerge as President of Nigeria, you became not just a pillar but a beacon of resistance by standing for Goodluck Jonathan. Rivers people, as grateful and rewarding as they can be, paid you back by ensuring your electoral victory against the incumbent All Progressives Congress (APC) led by your predecessor. On your emergence, where there were second term Governors in the region, you, a first term Governor, was seen by the people as not just the leader of the PDP, but the leader of the entire Niger Delta region. You earned it, and no one could dispute it.
In 2019, when your re-election bid was being challenged ferociously, Rivers people once again stood solidly behind you. Many were killed in the process of defending your votes. Do you remember Dr. Ferry Gberegbe that was shot and killed while trying to protect your votes in Khana Local Government Area? There are many more unnamed and unrecognised sons and daughters of Rivers State who sacrificed their lives so that you could emerge as a second term Governor of Rivers State.
In 2022/23, Honourable Minister, you oversaw a party primary across board that saw some candidates imprisoned and internal party democracy jettisoned for your wishes, leading to the emergence of flag bearers of our party all singlehandedly picked by you. You have on more than one occasion publicly stated that you paid for all their forms. Even those shortchanged in this process licked their wounds and continued to play their roles as party members to ensure the success of the party at all levels. In what will go down as one of the most keenly contested elections in recent Rivers history, with formidable candidates like Senator Magnus Abe of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Mr Tonye Cole of the All Progressives Congress (APC), and the vibrant youth driven Labour Party (LP), PDP emerged victorious across board except for Phalga Constituency 1 that was lost to the Labour Party. (Not that you did not loose in some other LGA’s but let’s stick to the official figures declared by INEC).
It begs the question, why then do you want to burn down Rivers State, when everyone who now holds political office emerged through a process designed and endorsed by you? Is it that you do not care about Rivers people and you are all about yourself? If so, I am forced to believe that those around you are not telling you the truth. The truth being that in a state where your words were law; where houses and businesses could be demolished or closed down without any recourse to legalities, where Executive Orders could be deployed to stifle the opposition, that your popularity is now at an all-time low. Probably because they are afraid of you, or of losing the benefits they gain from you, they fail to tell you that what you might perceive as a battle against your successor, has slowly but gradually degenerating into a battle against Rivers State and Rivers people. You know, there is a popular saying that, a man can cook for the community and the community will finish the food, but when a community decides to cook for one man, the reverse is the case.
LEAVE FUBARA ALONE
You have gone on and on about being betrayed by Governor Siminalayi Fubara. You point fingers forgetting that some of those same fingers quick to spot betrayals point straight back at you. It is not Governor Fubara that has betrayed the PDP by working against it in the just concluded General Election, and working with the opposition at the State and Federal level to destabilise the party. It is you, Honourable Minister. It is not Governor Fubara that betrayed Rivers people by instigating a political crisis with propensity to escalate ethnic tensions in Rivers State. It is you Honourable Minister. It is not Governor Fubara that has declared himself God over all in Rivers State and has no qualms with burning the state to the ground to prove a point. It is you Honourable Minister. It is you Honourable Minister who told the world that the APC was a cancer and you can never support a cancerous party. It is you Honourable Minister who ended up facilitating the emergence of the same “cancerous” APC that has accelerated the economic decline of this country and further impoverished our people with no remorse. All so you can be a Minister of the Federal Capital Territory? The lack of self awareness is gobsmacking.
Some days back I came across a video where you talked about death and how you do not cry when you hear about the death of some people because you have no idea what might have caused it considering many a politician swear “over dead bodies” and still go back on their words. Those words made me think, and I could see the reason behind them. You see, in chosing to be God in the affairs of Rivers people, you have closed your eyes and ears to reason; you see nothing and hear nothing that can cause you to rethink on the path you have chosen. In your quest to “show Fubara” you have unwittingly united a vast majority of Rivers people behind him, so much that even those who despised him because of you, now like or love him, because of you too. In your scheming, I will advise you not to forget that “the voice of the people is the voice of God”.
Note that the war which you have or are waging against Governor Fubara, has gone beyond being merely political as you might see in your minds eye. It is now one that, fortunately for some and unfortunately for others, has evolved into a war against Rivers people. It is good to point out that no one has taken a stand against Rivers people and won. No one has gone against God and won. In your defiant characteristic manner, it will be unfortunate if you believe your own hubris and that of those around you on the possibility of you being the first to successfully go against Rivers people. It will be a needless gamble; one where if you win you create more enemies for yourself than you can withstand on your political journey, and if you lose, your legacy becomes an inglorious and irredeemable one in Rivers State, the Niger Delta, and Nigeria at large. For your sake as regards posterity, it is my greatest wish that you have a moment of sobriety and a deep reflection and introspection on this path you have chosen.
Honourable Minister, sir, what is left of your legacy is on the brink of being completely desecrated and relegated to the dustbin of our political history, and it will be a sad end to what I will say has been a wonderful political career that many can only dream of. The ball is in your court, and may God Almighty have mercy on us all and forgive us for our shortcomings.
Gabriel Baritulem Pidomson
Dr Pidomson is former Chief of Staff, Government House, Port Harcourt and former member, Rivers State House of Assembly.
In 2015, I made a conscious decision to invest my financial resources, my time, and energy into supporting Nyesom Wike’s gubernatorial campaign. I poured my heart and soul into ensuring Nyesom Wike emerged victorious even at the risk of my personal safety.
Again in 2019, I doubled down on my commitment. I invested a significant amount of money to procure campaign outfits for all twenty-three Local Governments Areas of Rivers State. I spared no expense in supplementing Wike’s election efforts in my own local government, and once again putting myself at great risk to safeguard the fairness and transparency of the electoral process.
However, despite my unwavering loyalty and sacrifices, I found myself abandoned and forgotten by Wike. Throughout his eight-year tenure, he failed to acknowledge my contributions or fulfill his promises and agreements. Even as a former Deputy Governor, Wike denied me my severance benefit.
My investment in Wike’s governorship was not just financial – it was a commitment of passion, dedication, and belief in a better future for Rivers State. Yet, his leadership style of dishonesty, greed, drunkenness and rash abuse of senior citizens brought me nothing but disappointment, misery and losses.
By the grace of God, today I speak not as a victim, but as a hero. I have accepted my losses, and I have moved on. And as I reflect on my experience, I cannot help but urge Wike to do the same and allow peace and development to reign in Rivers State.
Nyesom Wike, when you speak of investing in Governor Sim Fubara’s election, remember those like me who also invested in you. Remember the sacrifices I made, the risks I took, and the promises and agreements you left unfulfilled.
It is time for you, Wike, to let go of the past and allow Governor Sim Fubara the breathing space he needs to lead Rivers State forward. Allow him to focus on the challenges of good governance and the aspirations of the people. Spare him these unwarranted and ill-conceived political manoeuvrings founded on personal agenda and not for general good of Rivers State and her people.
I may have lost my investment on Wike, but I have not lost hope in the future of Rivers State. And together, we will continue to strive for a brighter tomorrow.
Long Live the Governor to Rivers State, Sir Siminialayi Fubara!
Long Live the Good People of Rivers State!!
Long Live the Federal Republic of Nigeria!!!
Engr Ikuru is former Deputy Governor of Rivers State.
Tele Ikuru
