TheCable

Segun Awolowo, the executive director of the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), says it is annoying for other countries to claim Nigerian exports.

The grandson of the late Obafemi Awolowo, premier of the Western region in 1954, told TheCable that the government is making efforts to improve the ease of doing business.

“There are people that take their goods out (of the country) for the purposes that we are not assisting them and the annoying thing is that they now record (those goods) as goods from that country.

“We have shea nut that is shea butter going from Niger state to Ghana, because they have a huge processing plant there which we do not have. It is now processed as Ghana shea.”

Awolowo said that CBN restricted exporters because people were using it for fraudulent purposes.

“CBN restricted exporters because people were using it for fraudulent purposes so we need to find a balance. The expectation of the export council is to drive export and bring all exporters on board.

“We have brought the complaints to the CBN and we will look at it together to find a way because we need the exporters to get foreign exchange.”

While speaking at an exclusive dialogue on CBN’s forex policy organised by the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG), Awolowo said Nigeria must export or perish.

“Government is tackling bureaucracy; it has set up a national council on the ease of doing business that is under the office of the vice president. We are in a recession, we have no time to waste, you can’t use bureaucracy to stop an exporter taking out of the country.

“I have said it before, Nigeria must export or die. We need to move up the ranking. We must work our way out of recession, we must produce and export our way out of recession.”