Ghana Far Ahead of Nigeria in Non-oil Exports to America
Ghana Far Ahead of Nigeria in Non-oil Exports to America
Ghana with only a population of about 24,391,823 is far head of Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa in non-oil exports to the United States of America under the African Growth Opportunity Act (AGOA) according to 2011 reports. Ghana exported a total sum of $454 million of non-oil products to the U.S., whereas the so called giant of Africa only managed to export $2. 5 million of non-oil products. How pathetic for a nation of over 158 million people!
Aminata Brown of BaBa Blankets exports Made in Ghana textiles to the United States of America.
Six other African countries topped the list of exporters and they are the following:
1. South Africa, $3.7 billion
2. Lesotho, $314 million
3. Kenya, $292 million
4. Cameroon, $173 million
5. Mauritius, $169 million
6. Namibia, $134 million
You can see that Nigeria's crude oil export to the U.S. at $33 million in 2011 is even $101 million behind Namibia's non-oil exports to the U.S in the same year.
It is really pathetic to see how Nigeria's non-oil exports have drastically reduced, because of the mismanagement of the economy by incompetent administrations.
The leadership of Nigerian government since 1999 to date should be ashamed of their glaring incompetence in governance. But they prefer to spend millions of dollars on importation of goods that would have been produced in Nigeria if the manufacturing industries have not collapsed. The ruling class is made up of shameless political contractors and administrators whose stock-in-trade is sharing oil blocks, dubious contracts and import licenses for generators, diesel, kerosene, petrol, vegetable oils, new and used automobiles and auto parts, textiles, clothes, footwear, pirated CDS and DVDs, salts, sugar, beverages, rice, beans and other foodstuffs, cement, furniture, building materials, Brazilian and Asian human hairweave attachments and wigs, condoms, contraceptives, housemaids/sex maids (imported from human trafficking rings in neighbouring countries like Benin and Togo) cutlery (silverware), stationery, contraband goods, etc.
The importation of most of these goods should be stopped, because Nigerians can manufacture them if there are competent people in government.
The shamelessness of the Nigerian ruling class is the charade of nominating and awarding themselves national honours every year! Honours for what? For their political buffoonery and chicanery and daylight robbery in their brazen looting of the national treasury?
The horrendous nature of corruption in Nigeria is beyond human comprehension.
They cannot even invest the billions of dollars they have misappropriated from public funds on agriculture, innovative startups and manufacturing industries. They spend the stolen public funds on real estate and importation of automobiles and contraband goods. Useless investments of little or no value to nation building and they have failed to even learn from the success stories coming from Ghana where manufacturing industries and mechanized farms are producing various goods for non-oil exports to the U.S. and other countries.
~ By Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima, author of Children of Heaven, Sleepless Night, Scarlet Tears of London, Bye, Bye Mugabe, In the House of Dogs, Black Obama and the American Dream, The Prophet Lied and other books, is also the Publisher/CEO of International Digital Post Network Limited, Founder of Eko International Film Festival and Founder/CEO of Screen Outdoor Open Air Cinema, operators of the Screen Naija One Village, One Cinema Project in Nigeria.