AfCFTA has failed to secure requisite traction amid opportunities’

A Professor of International Law and Jurisprudence, Akin Oyebode, has described the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) as a dream deferred, which has not secured requisite traction since its take-off.

The similarity in the goods and products of the different African countries, Oyebode said, did not avail the complementarity which diversity would have facilitated.

Oyebode, who was the keynote speaker, said this at the 45th yearly conference of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators of Nigeria (ICSAN), where he spoke on the theme: ‘The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and National Development: Issues, Challenges and Opportunities.

He lamented that the failure by many of the state parties to transform AfCFTA Act into domestic laws has also not helped matters, stating that out of plain fear or docility, many African countries have been unable to be assertive or stand up to the wiles of imperialism.