Nigeria’s signing of the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has again provoked debate over the value of such economic pacts, given that the oil and gas sector remains dominant in the economy and its attendant risks.

Moreover, it appears that over the years, successive federal governments have been content with rhetoric and political grandstanding on international trade agreements. The result is the lack of visibility or impact that such agreements have had on the country, if at all they had any impact beyond the marginal.

Indeed, the dominance of the oil and gas sector in driving the growth of the Nigerian economy has been a recurring decimal over the years despite efforts by the authorities to reverse the trend. This continuing dominance of the sector in the country appears to be a clear manifestation of the difficulty of successive administrations, including the present Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration, in charting a new direction for the growth of the economy. This is clearly evident in the less-than-par rate of non-oil sector development.

Despite decades of trade deals with different countries, to reverse the unwholesome trend, the results have been undulating.

Many have wondered whether the numerous trade agreements and deals to promote non-oil exports are really necessary or if there are underlying factors militating against the maximisation of the trade agreements that need to be addressed urgently.

The trade agreements the country has entered into are indeed many, yet the results are very poor in their value addition to the Nigerian economy relative to the benefits derived from crude oil exports. For some, many of these trade deals have showcased more of glamour and publicity than actual benefits, in addition to perennial jamborees and trips abroad.

They hardly lead to meaningful benefits to the economy in enhancing open markets and favourable trading terms for the country’s private sector. These bilateral and multilateral trade agreements, by and large, are yet to be productive.

The trade deals the country has entered into with different countries and regional groups from the year 2000 include the U.S.-sponsored Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) programme, the ECOWAS Trade Liberalisation Scheme (ETLS), the United Kingdom’s Developing Countries Trading Scheme (DCTS), Nigeria-China Currency Swap Agreement and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), among many others.

These agreements have had their various challenges and the country’s experiences for each of these have been varied. Largely, non-oil exports in Nigeria have not benefited from these trade deals over the years, even though in the recent past, there were some significant upsurges in this regard, which have also been the case in the past, which often show reversals in the passage of time. However, despite this seemingly short-lived experience, government efforts to grow the sector to the level it can compete with crude remain an aspiration. Notwithstanding, these trade deals have continued.

Early this year, the country signed another agreement, the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), even though existing trade deals continue to underperform. One overriding factor is the poor implementation and follow-up of these agreements once they are signed and the euphoria dies down.

The feedback from the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) that non-oil exports rose to $6.1 billion in 2025, an increase of over 11per cent from $5.4 billion in 2024, appears good at face value, but in historical context, these are short-lived phenomena. Reports also indicate that in real dollar terms, the country’s non-oil exports have grown only marginally in more than 20 years, while oil and gas still account for about 90 per cent of total export value. These statistics are not significantly different from the situation since AGOA came into effect.

The question thus arises as to what the militating factors are that have brought about this sorry state in the provision of meaningful alternatives to the oil sector in the development of the Nigerian economy.

In charting the way forward for a more favourable outcome in this regard, many issues would need to be addressed. First, there is the inaction of the various administrations in the effective implementation of these trade agreements once they have been signed. The issue of government bureaucracy comes in here.

There is a need for the revamping of the functioning of the relevant government agencies managing these trade agreements. Often, poor management in this regard is complicit. Next is the issue of some unfavourable economic reforms, which have not generally been in the best interest of the country.

For example, despite the various devaluations of the local currency vis-à-vis the US dollar and other foreign currencies in the quest to promote non-oil exports, the benefits from these trade agreements have not been significant, yet the negative effects of the devaluation have been felt in the other sectors of the economy, with negative implications for inflation and other macroeconomic indicators. Third is the unfavourable and high-interest-rate structure in the country, which has been somewhat anti-growth.

This creates some disadvantage to Nigerian exporters in relation to their trading partners in these other countries, who secure credit for their businesses at lower interest rates.

The poor state of the ports, poor infrastructural facilities and the deteriorating ease of doing business in the country, at least in recent times, also militate against the maximisation of the benefits of the often much-touted trade agreements the country has been entering into in the past. Addressing these issues would be value-adding in reversing the continual dominance of the oil sector in the growth of the Nigerian economy.