A new case for a Commonwealth based on trade

Muhammadu Buhari

The United Kingdom’s exit of the European Union is now all but
certain. Only the passage of time will reveal what their new
relationship shall be. But with this new arrangement, I – like many
other Commonwealth leaders – also seek a new settlement: not only
of closer relations between the UK and my own nation, but of
unleashing trade within the club in which we together shall
remain.

Relations between Nigeria and the UK are close and longstanding,
most recently reiterated in our 2018 bi-lateral security pact and
our collaboration in anti-trafficking. But in recent years, our
relationship – particularly economically – has become increasingly
defined by Britain’s membership of the European Union.

A new free trade agreement would reconfigure this, presenting
new opportunities for both. As the largest economy in Africa, my
country of nearly 200 million people has a great deal to offer:
Nigeria’s vast natural energy and mineral resources, unbarred
through the ending of customs barriers, could help supply growth
for companies in all corners of the UK. Greater access would also
be forthcoming to one of the world’s fastest expanding groups of
consumers – the Nigerian middle classes.

For my country, greater UK engagement in its economy would bring
jobs to under-tapped sectors, such as agriculture and
manufacturing. Millions of highly skilled, English-speaking but
underemployed young people, are eager to work but without the
opportunities that foreign investment can bring to create jobs and
build businesses.

Yet, there is also a case to be made that our two Commonwealth
countries should try, with other members, to deliver more –
collectively. In 2015, I became the first head of a new
Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council tasked with boosting
trade and investment within the wider organisation. Now with the
United Kingdom – the Commonwealth’s largest economy – no longer
obliged to ringfence its economy with tariffs, this mission will be
given a jolt of vitality.

However, we must be realistic: the commonwealth will not
suddenly become a multilateral-free trade zone. Today many members
reside within regional free trade and customs zones of their own.
Yet without any of us needing to relinquish these ties, we can work
together to minimise – consistent with respective memberships – as
far as possible many of the tariffs and barriers on commodities,
products and services. Because member countries’ national laws are
built on the principles of English jurisprudence, we might work
together from this common platform to better align regulations on
investment, certification and trade.

A renewed sense of Commonwealth solidarity would also be of
enormous benefit to the large and vital diasporas – particularly
from Africa and the Indian subcontinent – that live in Western
Commonwealth countries such as Britain, Canada and Australia. These
communities still maintain the strongest of cultural and family
links with the countries from which they and their forebears
emigrated.

Yet visa restrictions and customs barriers must be reduced to
fulfill the potential these connections could bring to the nations
where they today reside. As an African leader I have an obligation
to speak of the fact that while many in the African Diaspora enjoy
considerable benefits from life in the West, they do not always
feel at the heart of the community. A renewed sense that there are
ties that bind us through the Commonwealth, and a concerted effort
to grow those links through trade, could act as a spur to encourage
togetherness and the certainty of belonging.

This year provides two critical summits in which this new
determination could take seed. In January, London shall play host
to the UK-Africa Investment Summit. (The continent is the
Commonwealth’s largest constituent, providing over a third of its
membership.) And then back to Africa, where Rwanda will welcome
countries to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. It is at
this biennial summit that many of the organisation’s milestones
have been achieved – particularly in democracy and human rights.
The 2020 summit could be the wrench that begins to tighten our
economic structures, drawing strength from our shared bonds of
history, friendship and language.

Time will tell if Britain’s new ability to strike free trade
deals directly with other countries once it departs the EU can be
built into more than bilateral economic cooperation. But there is
no reason why, collectively, we should not try.

Nor should we dismiss the potential for making the Commonwealth
of Nations more than a voluntary organisation of equals based on a
shared history that it is today. Instead it is in all our people’s
interests to labour, dispassionately, to increase our focus on
lowering barriers to achieving what truly brings freedom,
friendship and equality: prosperity through trade.

Buhari is President, Federal Republic of Nigeria

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