Minister of Foreign Affairs Ambassador Yusuf Maitama Tuggar has said that “in a world witnessing protectionist tendencies from global market leaders, alongside a weaponised reordering of the global tariff landscape, it is only right that neighbours and regional blocs align for the common good of their people. The West African response to these protectionist trends must be clear and deliberate for long-term success, rather than a reactionary and disjointed approach”. Speaking at High-Level Private Sector Roundtable Ahead of the West Africa Economic Summit
(WAES) 2025, he said “this is why WAES is conceived as a platform to help shape the sub-region’s evolving response. WAES is a strategic legacy initiative by the President, supported by his colleagues accross West Africa, aimed at shifting the paradigm from dependency to productivity and from fragmented markets to integrated value chains. The idea is to use our size to generate efficient productivity in order to outcompete others in the global market. A broader West African market will drive down costs and enable our businesses to outcompete others.
“The Summit, scheduled for the 20th to 21st of June in Abuja, will bring together Heads of State, Ministers, investors, and regional institutions from across West Africa. More importantly, it will include you.
We recognise that governments alone do not build economies; enterprises do. It is your investments, distribution networks, factories, innovations, and your ability to navigate risk that drive economic growth, not only in Nigeria but across the sub-region. This gathering is special not only because it marks our first formal interaction in the lead-up to the West Africa Economic Summit (WAES), but also because it signifies the depth of integration and cooperation that we hope to establish with you. Moreover, this moment signifies a definitive shift in which the voice of business is not merely recognised at the margins, but is systematically institutionalised within the core processes of policy formulation and regional economic diplomacy. It reflects a deeper entanglement of corporate interests and statecraft, wherein the private sector emerges not as a peripheral stakeholder but as a central architect of economic governance frameworks.
“Nigeria’s economic stature within the West African sub-region is both significant and uncontested. Nevertheless, national strength alone is not sufficient enough to sustain long-term growth or to assert effective regional leadership. In an increasingly interconnected global economy, the imperative is clear: West Africa must transcend fragmented national pursuits and pursue greater regional integration. By leveraging our collective demographic advantage of over 400 million people and unlocking the latent potential embedded in our shared markets, we can cultivate a more resilient and inclusive regional economic architecture. Such a collaborative approach is not merely desirable; it is essential for sustainable development, competitive positioning, and the realisation of a common prosperity across the sub-region.
“The empirical data presents a sobering reality: intra-African trade remains limited, constituting approximately 15% of the continent’s total trade volume. Within the West African sub-region, this figure is even more modest, fluctuating between 12% and 13%. When juxtaposed with the robust intra-regional trade levels observed in Asia (circa 60%) and Europe (approaching 70%), the comparative deficit is striking. This disparity underscores a critical insight: the constraint on Africa’s, and more specifically, West Africa’s economic integration is not a function of lacking potential, but rather of deficits in coordination, cross-border infrastructure, and sustained political commitment. The challenge, therefore, lies not in envisioning a prosperous, interconnected region but in establishing the institutional mechanisms, logistical frameworks, and governance consensus required to actualise that vision.
“Yet, it is not only a tale of challenges; in recent years, we have seen a more efficacious commitment to implementing the sub-region’s objectives, which include fostering legal and regulatory convergence towards a Customs Union, the ECOWAS Trade Liberalisation Scheme, SIGMAT, the Abidjan-Lagos and Abidjan-Dakar corridors, the West African Power Pool, and the framework for the African-Atlantic Gas Pipeline. These are just a few West-Africa-led initiatives that will be advantageous to businesses across the sub-region in the near future. As I stated during my welcome address at the recent ECOWAS at 50 celebration in Lagos, the Atlantic world has long played a defining role in shaping the architecture of the modern global order. The wealth of the West African coast—our gold, our labour, our very people—fuelled empires and financed revolutions; yet we have been denied a fair stake in the prosperity we helped create. While others developed on the back of Atlantic commerce, West Africa has remained short-changed. Today, we are no longer spectators. We now stand at the threshold of a new Atlantic era of prosperity. This time, we will shape its terms. This time, we will ensure equity. This time, West Africa will rise not as a resource base for others, but as a fully engaged and empowered actor in global trade and transformation.
“Today, we embark on what we hope will be an ongoing conversation, one in which your contributions and insights shape the structure, content, and outcomes of the Summit. WAES must reflect the realities of business. This requires us to speak frankly, think boldly, and act collaboratively.
We want to hear from you on:
• What barriers are you facing in cross-border trade?
• What policies or regulations are stifling expansion?
• What financing gaps do you need addressed?
• And what reforms would genuinely transform your operating landscape? “Your feedback will directly influence the thematic sessions, speaker selections, and, most importantly, the actionable outcomes we hope to see emerge from the Summit. I would like to emphasise that this is not simply another high-level conference where declarations are made and forgotten. WAES focuses on deliverables, identifying the appropriate tools, policies, infrastructure, and financing, and deploying them to facilitate business in West Africa, making it faster, cheaper, and more predictable.
This vision requires all of us—government and business, regulators and entrepreneurs, local firms and multinationals—to move in alignment. Let me conclude with this: We often discuss West Africa’s potential, and rightly so. However, unstructured potential is wasted potential. WAES presents an opportunity to refocus, fostering structured engagement between governments and the private sector that endures beyond summits.”
