Five years after Nigeria became a signatory to the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), trade experts have lamented the slow implementation progress.
They also called for urgent infrastructure development and better knowledge dissemination to unlock the agreement’s potential, warning that the country risked becoming a dumping ground of foreign-manufactured goods without deliberate preparation.
These concerns dominated discussions at a webinar convened by the AfCFTA Youth Champions Nigeria, where leading practitioners from the export and trade-facilitation ecosystem examined Nigeria’s readiness, on paper and in practice, for continental trade integration.
Principal Consultant, Fortress20 Global Ltd, Adetokunbo Adewoyin, stressed that Nigeria’s export challenges began with a continental connectivity crisis that remained largely unresolved.
While AfCFTA’s promise hinges on seamless movement of goods, services and people across borders, logistics, she warned, this continued to be a major bottleneck.
She decried the fact that Africa’s corridors remained thin, poorly linked and expensive, leaving traders to contend with what “near-non-existent” intra-continental connectivity.
Although major infrastructure projects, such as the Abidjan-Lagos Trade Corridor, the Lobito Corridor and the Trans-Saharan Highway, are at various stages of completion, their impact is still years away, she said.
In the interim, Nigerian exporters must navigate difficult terrain: dilapidated domestic roads, congested ports, arbitrary border procedures and limited cross-border haulage options.
Also, President and Founder, Women in Export Trade and Investment (WETI), Edafetite Usin, voiced frustration over the pace of progress, noting that Nigeria recently celebrated its first shipping to Kenya or Uganda as a milestone.
“We’re too mature to be rejoicing over shipments. That should not be a milestone for a country of Nigeria’s capacity,” she said. Her dismay mirrored widespread sentiment that Nigeria’s export ecosystem remained structurally unprepared for AfCFTA-scale trade.
Stressing the urgent need for Nigeria to move beyond reliance on raw commodity exports, Usin warned that without a deliberate push into value-added processing, Nigeria would continue exporting cheaply only to repurchase finished products at a premium.
She cited China’s recent experiments to manipulate shea butter tree fruiting cycles from three years to three months, a move she described as proof of how aggressively other nations were positioning themselves to dominate Africa’s value chains.
Beyond infrastructure and manufacturing constraints, a member of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) Commission on Customs and Trade Facilitation, Dr Bamidele Ayemibo, identified information gaps as perhaps the most significant obstacle to maximising AfCFTA benefits.
Drawing on his comparative research involving European trade models, he said information asymmetry, regulatory complexity and poor understanding of customs processes were Nigeria’s biggest trade barriers.
According to Ayemibo, despite Nigeria’s export registry showing over 20,000 businesses, fewer than 1,200 are active, noting that many of the exporters dropped out after their first or second attempt due to costly, avoidable errors.
One bright spot in the AfCFTA landscape is the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS), which allows direct payments between African countries without converting to US dollars.
As of 2025, 18 central banks have joined the PAPSS network, including Ghana, Nigeria, Egypt, Liberia, Rwanda, Kenya and Zambia, significantly reducing transaction costs and currency risks for cross-border traders.
The experts called on Nigerian regulatory bodies to shift from being controllers to enablers of trade. Usin recounted difficulties getting sample products released by regulators who demanded documentation before she could even examine the goods—a situation she described as “a regulatory contradiction. They need to understand that this is trade and use whatever they’re doing to enable the trade, not frustrate it,” she said.
The experts also outlined a strategic roadmap for Nigerians hoping to break into the export market, stressing the importance of understanding regional markets, getting documentation right and building collaborative networks.
Adewoyin emphasised the value of market intelligence, drawing from her undercover travels across West Africa, where she observed that consumer behaviour and purchasing patterns vary sharply, even among countries that share borders.
Such insights, she argued, were essential for exporters seeking to position their products effectively.
They also highlighted the centrality of proper documentation, noting that the certificate of origin remains the most important requirement for accessing AfCFTA tariff advantages, while customs declarations, commercial invoices and packing lists are equally crucial to smooth border processes.
In terms of product choices, Ayemibo advised exporters to prioritise Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG), including processed foods, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics, given that many African economies are low- or lower-middle-income markets with strong demand for essentials.
Beyond individual preparation, the speakers stressed the need for collaboration, advocating what Ayemibo described as “co-petition,” a model where exporters cooperate even as they compete. With no single business capable of satisfying continental demand on its own, they argued that shared intelligence, partnerships and collective strength were key to thriving under the AfCFTA framework.
With AfCFTA representing a potential market of 1.4 billion people and a combined Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of over $450 billion, speakers argued that Nigeria could not afford to remain passive.
