Nigeria: Press zooms in on Nigeria’s readiness to join continental trade initiative, others

APA – Lagos (Nigeria)
The report that the Executive Secretary, National Working Committee, African Continental Free Trade Area, Nigeria, Segun Awolowo, has expressed the readiness of the country to join the second phase of the Guided Trade Initiative is one of the trending stories in Nigerian newspapers on Friday.
The Punch reports that the Executive Secretary, National Working Committee, African Continental Free Trade Area, Nigeria, Segun Awolowo, has expressed the readiness of the country to join the second phase of the Guided Trade Initiative.
The initiative by AfCFTA is a solution-oriented approach that aims to facilitate trade between interested state parties by connecting businesses and products for export and import.
In a statement on Thursday by the Head, Strategic Communications Directorate of the National Working Committee, AfCFTA, Mabel Aderonke, said Awolowo disclosed this during a meeting with a delegation from AfCFTA Secretariat.
Awolowo noted that Nigeria’s commitment to AFCFTA is very crucial in boosting the nation’s economic growth, noting that the alliance will make Nigeria’s economic goals and objectives broader.
It partly read, “We reached a milestone in the first phase of the GTI. This successful pilot project has brought about positive development changes, capacity-building initiatives, and growth in the economy by impacting trade between Nigeria and other AfCFTA member-states.
“As we prepare to join the second phase, it is to demonstrate and strengthen specific objectives and trade relations, particularly reducing trade barriers, streamlining customs procedures, ensuring infrastructure, and promoting value-addition with key industries.
“The new administration with its Renewed Hope agenda, is focused on addressing challenges that hinder trade, such as improving logistics and transportation infrastructure. Simplifying customs procedures and strengthening trade-related institutions.
“The checklist received from Ghana after the completion of the first phase requires the fulfillment of certain obligations, which Nigeria has begun to process vigorously.”
The newspaper says that the organised labour has knocked the Federal Government for releasing a N180bn palliative package to states to cushion the impact of the fuel subsidy removal.
The Nigeria Labour Congress and the Trade Union Congress insisted that the governors could not be trusted, noting that politicians and not the poor would benefit from the N5bn largess given to each state government for disbursement to the citizens.
The Federal Government on Thursday announced an N5bn palliative for each state of the federation and 180 trucks of rice as part of measures to assuage the pains of the subsidy removal.
The policy, which led to sharp and multiple increases in fuel pump prices, has driven up the prices of goods and services, pushing millions of Nigerians into poverty and worsening the socio-economic situation in the country.
The development also triggered nationwide protests by organised labour which insisted on the repair of refineries as a precondition for the subsidy withdrawal.
But announcing the release of the palliative at the end of the 135th National Economic Council meeting presided over by Vice President Kashim Shettima in Abuja, the Borno State Governor, Babagana Zulum, disclosed that the N5bn was to enable the state governments to procure 100,000 bags of rice, 40,000 bags of maize and fertilizers to cushion the effect of food shortage across the country.
He added that considering the urgency in meeting the need to mitigate the skyrocketing food prices across the country, the Federal Government had last week released five trucks of rice to each state of the federation.
The Guardian reports that stormy clouds of war are gathering ominously over the dreary landscape of the Sahel after troops of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) yesterday stated its readiness to participate in a standby force that is preparing to intervene in the Republic of Niger.
This is coming after a raft of trade and financial sanctions already applied since the July 26 military takeover failed to make the coup leaders succumb.
The bloc’s military chiefs met in Ghana to discuss a possible armed intervention to reverse the coup in Niger, just as Germany called for European Union (EU) sanctions against the rebel leaders.
Although the defence chiefs had backed the calls for dialogue as a mediation tactic, the group said all elements that would go into any military intervention had been worked out and were being refined.
This included the timing, resources needed and how, where and when to deploy such force. Ivory Coast, Benin and Nigeria are expected to contribute troops, but little detail has yet to emerge over the potential Niger operation.
Alarmed by a series of military takeovers in the region, ECOWAS at its Second Extraordinary Summit on Niger last week in Abuja, agreed to activate a “standby force to restore constitutional order” in Niger.
At yesterday’s meeting in Ghana’s capital, Accra, the defence chiefs said they are prepared to reinstate the democratic order in Niger. The Accra meeting of top army commanders, which continues today, is coming after fresh violence in Niger, with jihadists killing at least 17 soldiers in an ambush.
Twenty more soldiers were wounded, six seriously, in the heaviest losses since the July 26 coup, when the presidential guard ousted President Mohamed Bazoum and detained him and his family.
The newspaper says that the Athletics Association of Nigeria (AFN) and many other followers of the sport heaved a sigh of relief yesterday when the news broke that 100-metre hurdles women’s world record holder, Oluwatobilola Amusan, has been cleared of the dope charges levelled against her by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) of World Athletics.
Amusan was suspended provisionally by the AIU pending investigations of her missed whereabout tests early last month.
The Nigerian, who broke the 100-metre hurdles record at the last World Championships in Oregon, U.S., was assumed to have committed an offence punishable with at least two years suspension from athletics, as she was said to have dodged anti-doping tests by AIU agents. But from the onset, she insisted on her innocence, saying there must have been miscommunication somewhere.
According to reports from Budapest, Hungary, venue of the World Championships, which begin tomorrow, a tribunal of three arbitrators exonerated Amusan from two out of the three test failures when the Nigerian argued that the tester did not do enough to locate her.
Sources at the AFN said the athlete will now join her compatriots in Budapest ahead of tomorrow’s opening ceremony of the World Championships.
A tweet posted by AIU on X (Twitter) read: “AIU Head Brett Clothier has indicated it is disappointed by this decision and will review the reasoning in detail before deciding whether to exercise its right of appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport within the applicable deadline.”
GIK/APA