Osinbajo Urges Africa Nations to Embrace Int’l Collaboration for Growth

The Vice President of Nigeria, Yemi Osinbajo has said although economic sovereignty was important, Africa would need to deepen her international cooperation and collaboration in order to grow.

Osinbajo said this yesterday at the opening of the ongoing Africa CEOs’ Forum holding in Abidjan, Cote D’Ivoire.

According to a release by his spokesman, Laolu Akande, the vice president, who arrived Ivory Coast Sunday night, was welcomed at the Felix Houphouët-Boigny International Airport by the Prime Minister of Cote d’Ivoire, Mr Patrick Achi.

Other speakers at the opening panel were President Nana Akufo-Addo of Ghana; the Managing Director of the International Finance Corporation, Mr. MakhtarDiop; theGovernor of Kenyan Central Bank, Dr. Patrick Njoroge; the CEO of Telcar Cocoa, Kate Kanyi Tometi-Fotso, and CEO of Instadeep, Karim Beguir.

Emphasising the need for collaboration between Africa and the rest of the world, Osinbajo warned:

“I think that we have to be a bit more careful with the concept of economic sovereignty because we really need to collaborate more and with the way that development is going, we need to watch some of these things.”

For instance, the vice president noted that it would be difficult to express tax sovereignty in the taxation of technology companies even when it was desirable to express power to tax.

He added that there was no way one could use same basis, personal and territorial, for taxation considering the way the world and technology were structured.

“We have got to cooperate with the world and the international tax system to ensure that we are able to derive maximum benefit. We have got to take a seat at the table and ensure that all of the various initiatives on internationaltaxationfavour us in Africa…” he stressed.

Osinbajo said this has becomeimperativebecausethe world itself had gone beyond “brick and mortal” and now about intellectual capital. In another chat with organisers of the forum, the CEO of BUA Group, Alhaji Abdulsamad Rabiu, spoke about the concept of economic sovereignty, urging Africans to leverage opportunities provided by the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA).

On his part, the President and Founder of the Africa CEO Forum, Amir Ben Yahmed, noted that economic sovereignty, green economy and industrial transformation, among others were new paths to Africa’s prosperity, adding that the projected impact of the Af- CFTA on economies across the continent was premised on a viable and productive economy.

Also Read: African Informal Trade Worth $93 Billion Yearly – Yemi Osinbajo

The vice president was also billed to hold bilateral meetings with the Managing Director of the International Finance Corporation, Mr Makhtar Diop, and the United Nation’s SG’s Special Advocate on Inclusive Finance for Development, Her Majesty, Queen Maxima of Netherlands.