What Nigeria, other African countries should do before export – Okonjo-Iweala

By Emma Ujah The Director–General of the World Trade Organisation, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has strongly advised Nigeria and other African countries to process critical minerals before their export. She spoke at the Fireplace Dialogue on Building Africa’s Resilience in a Changing Global Economic Order, at the 7th Africa Emerging Markets Forum, in Abuja, on Wednesday.

Okonjo-Iweala, a former Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy of Nigeria insisted that the country should take advantage of the critical minerals in the country to produce Electric Vehicle batteries and similar goods to be a major player in the current global green energy revolution. She blamed the extraction and exportation of critical minerals in their raw forms for much of the terrorism, banditry and corruption in the country and other parts of Africa. Her words, “One high potential sector is critical minerals, where the green transition is driving demand for lithium bauxite, cobalt, and other elements necessary to manufacture EV batteries and other low carbon goods.

“Africa holds an estimated 30 percent of the world’s non-mineral reserves, and estimates for Latin America are similar. “For Africa, in particular, instead of the extract and export model that has been the source of so much volatility, economic underperformance, and let me be blunt-corruption, conflict, and banditry, the goal should be higher value, higher productivity growth, driven by the development of sub-regional value chains and integration into potential supply networks. “Quite frankly, the time to seize this opportunity is now, as geopolitics exerts some demand pressure for critical mineral supply chain diversification, if we miss this opportunity, I’m afraid we would have missed a lot.

“Fortunately, Africa’s leaders seem to be moving in the right direction, with Morocco using its phosphate resources to produce electric vehicle components for international markets, particularly Chinese automakers in Zambia, DRC, Mozambique, and Angola, and here also in Nigeria, moves are put to see how to add value to critical minerals. “But these efforts need more systematization and harmonization, including a look at sub-regional approaches, so that countries are not picked up one by one in suboptimal bilateral agreements. The continent can seize green comparative advantages by harnessing abundant renewable e…