BUHARI TOO WEAK TO SIGN FREE TRADE AGREEMENT- OBASANJO

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo says President Muhammadu Buhari’s hands are too weak to sign the African Free Trade Agreement.

The former President made the statement on Saturday while speaking at the Babacar Ndiaye lecture series in Bali, Indonesia, The Cable reports.

Obasanjo spoke on the theme, ‘Global Power Disequilibrium, Trade Wars and Implications for Africa’ during the international lecture series instituted by Afrexim Bank to honour Dr. Babacar Ndiaye, a former President of the African Development Bank, who died on July 13, 2017.

The event held from the sidelines of the 2018 Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank Group.

Obasanjo said he hoped that Nigeria will soon have a President who will sign the agreement.

He said,

“Africa cannot overcome fears of trade wars till it achieves 50 per cent intra-Africa trade.

“The AfCTA is a good idea and for Nigeria, hopefully, we will have a president that will be able to sign it because the one that is there now, his hands are too weak to sign.”

Sources close to Obasanjo told one of our correspondents that the former President had begun using his influence to lobby support for Atiku.

A source close to Obasanjo said, “Baba has begun meeting some high-profile international figures, asking them to support a regime change in Nigeria.”

Guests present at the 2018 lecture included leaders of African and global banks, development finance institutions, the business community and political leaders attending the World Bank–IMF Annual Meetings.

Others were members of the diplomatic community, policymakers, academicians, African and non-African ministers of finance, economy and development, central bank governors, and CEOs of global and African corporations.

Obasanjo’s criticism comes barely three months after the Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, criticised the Buhari-led government for failing to sign the same free trade agreement.

Sanusi, who is a former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, had said at the launching of the Association Peer-Review Journal in July that it was ironic that Nigeria had signed many trade deals with European and Asian countries but was failing to replicate it in Africa.