…Laments Africa’s 2% share in global manufacturing value addition
President Bola Tinubu on Tuesday, revealed that Nigeria will spend about US$11.6 billion on debt service, about half of projected revenue, in 2026, blaming unfair global financial architecture for Africa’s poor economic development.
He called for the reversal of a global financial architecture that starves “African industries of affordable capital, tolerates massive illicit financial flows, and imposes policy constraints that our competitors themselves never observed when they built their own industrial bases.”
President Tinubu stated this while making Nigeria’s National Statement at the just concluded Africa/France summit, co-hosted by Presidents Emmanuel Macron of France and William Ruto of Kenya, which brought together leaders and top officials from more than 30 countries across the continent.
The President recalled that Nigeria had, while speaking September, from the podium of the United Nations General Assembly, warned that the international system must reform or risk irrelevance.
“We spoke not only of the Security Council but of the financial and trade structures that quietly de-industrialise our nations.
President Tinubu noted that despite decades of independence, Africa’s share of global manufacturing value added remains below 2 percent.
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“We export raw minerals, crude oil, and agricultural commodities, and we import processed goods at a premium. This pattern is not an accident.
“Nigeria does not come to this discussion as a supplicant. We come as a nation that has taken painful, homegrown decisions to put our house in order — removing fuel subsidies, unifying our exchange rate, recapitalising our banking system with over US$3.4 billion, and exiting the FATF grey list.
” These reforms were sovereign choices, not external conditions. They have delivered a declining debt-to-GDP ratio, now projected at 32.3 per cent in 2026, stronger external reserves of $45.5 billion, and a return of investor confidence. But, Excellencies, even a reforming nation like Nigeria is being forced to de-industrialise by a financial system that is stacked against us,’’ he noted.
According to Tinubu, ” Every single dollar that leaves our treasury to pay punitive interest rates is a dollar that did not go into our steel sector, our textile mills, our agro-processing plants, or our digital industries.
“It is a dollar that did not train a young Nigerian engineer or provide affordable power for our factories. Our industrial base is being starved of the blood it needs — long-term, affordable finance — while creditors and rating agencies treat African sovereigns as permanent high-risk borrowers, regardless of our fiscal performance.
“So, I ask this gathering: how can an African manufacturer compete with a competitor in Europe, Asia, or North America when the cost of borrowing in our nations is five to ten times higher? How can we build cross-border industrial value chains under the African Continental Free Trade Area when our infrastructure projects face a financing gap deepened by the very institutions meant to bridge it?
“The answer is plain: we cannot. The international financial architecture, as currently constituted, is an instrument of industrial disarmament for Africa.
“Nigeria is not asking for charity. We are demanding a financial system that intentionally enables Africa to industrialise — to process its own minerals, refine its own crude oil, manufacture its own pharmaceuticals, and compete fairly in global markets.
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“We will continue to borrow responsibly, but we insist that our creditworthiness be measured by our economic fundamentals and our industrial potential, not by outdated stereotypes,’’ he noted.
