Deconstructing Nigerian chief trade negotiator’s one year in office

BY ADAGHA TERSOO

Raymond Albert Kroc was an American businessman who purchased the fast-food company, McDonald’s, in 1961. Kroc is credited with the global expansion of McDonald’s, turning it into the most successful fast-food corporation in the world. He died more than fifty years ago but there are still some immortal and memorial thoughts he blessed the world with before his demise in 1984.

Kroc said: “The quality of a leader is reflected in the standards they set for themselves.”

These thoughts bear striking parallelism to the fecundity of fresh ideas, vision and drive, which Yonov Agah, the Nigerian chief trade negotiator and director-general Nigerian office for trade negotiation (NOTN), has brought to refashion and redefine the activities of trade negotiation in Nigeria and the African continent.

The building blocks and rapid trade policy that he has put in place is expected to drive development across the Nigerian trade ecosystem and the African continent, given the evolving global economic landscape, in order to foster free trade policy across the African continent.

In just one year, by dint of hard work, courage and clear-minded focus, Agah has brought to the NOTN, and indeed, the entire nation, what an average leader may not be able to accomplish in five years.

Whoever advised President Muhammadu Buhari to appoint Agah as Nigeria’s chief trade negotiator offered one of the most patriotic and generational services to our nation.

According to the minister of trade and investment, Adeniyi Adebayo, the appointment of the chief trade negotiator is patently meritocratic and smart. And congratulations are in order. Agah’s track record in trade negotiation and his sterling transformational strides as deputy director-general, World Trade Organisation, propelled President Muhammadu Buhari to approve his appointment as DG NOTN.

Agah’s appointment by President Buhari did not come to me as a surprise, because of his track record over the years. In October 2013, I was delighted to hear of his appointment as deputy director-general of the WTO. It was richly deserved.

Since 2006, Agah had chaired all the important WTO bodies. In 2011, he chaired the WTO’s general council, its highest-level decision-making body in Geneva, tasked with organising the Eighth WTO Ministerial Conference (MC8), held in Geneva from 15 to 17 December 2011. Given the prevailing stalemate in the Doha Round, MC8 was widely predicted to fail. But Agah snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. The conference was successful.

Popularly called “Fred” in Geneva, Agah’s reputation was hugely boosted with the success of MC8. So, few were surprised when, in October 2013, the then-new director-general of the WTO, Roberto Azevêdo, appointed him as one of his four deputy directors-general. He was reappointed for another term on October 1, 2017.

It is normal for cynics to regard an opinion piece like this as a publicity stunt or image-making work.

Such tendencies are only justifiable if the facts outlined in the piece are controvertible. The truth, really, is that things are looking up in the NOTN and at a frenetic speed. You would think that Agah had taken some painstaking courses in MIT or Oxford to be prepared for the sweeping reforms and institutional renaissance he has brought to the NOTN. He hit the ground running immediately after he was inaugurated by the minister of trade and investment.

In one year of effective and success-stuffed leadership, Agah has shown that he is eminently qualified and adequately prepared for leadership. There is a silver lining on the horizon for the Nigerian trade policy framework and the African Free Trade Policy.

Another pointer is the first-ever intensive trade negotiations skill (TNS) simulation course aimed at understanding the intricacies and details of trade negotiations, the course will further bring to bear the process of the laws, treaties, agreements, processes and procedure that regulates both bilateral and multilateral trading system under the WTO.

Agah’s resourcefulness and vision-driven leadership of the NOTN is determined to develop a robust Free Trade Agreement Template which will serve as a guide in all future trade-related agreements to be entered into by Nigeria.

Adagher Tersoo, a public affairs analyst, writes from Abuja.