The Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise (CPPE) has publicly opposed the idea of imposing legislative trade restrictions to force domestic value addition in Nigeria. CPPE warns that such measures, if enacted, could backfire in a fragile economy that still lacks sufficient processing capacity and solid fundamentals to support them.
The organisation’s position was laid out in a statement signed by its Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Muda Yusuf. CPPE’s analysis frames mandatory trade controls as counterproductive to industrial growth and unlikely to deliver the intended expansion of local processing industries.
CPPE argues that Nigeria’s path to sustainable domestic value addition must rest first on improving competitiveness, building processing capacity, and aligning policies with market realities. Strict trade restrictions introduced through legislation, the think tank says, risk distorting markets, weakening producers and processors, and undermining efficiency across value chains.
In its core message, CPPE stresses that durable value addition cannot be built through coercion:
Reducing these structural barriers is far more effective than restricting primary-product exports.
Trade restrictions should not be matters for legislative enactment; rather, they should be fiscal and trade-policy instruments administered by relevant fiscal authorities with sufficient flexibility to respond to prevailing economic conditions.
The analysis highlights that Nigeria’s current industrial base remains limited in processing scale and competitiveness. Without significant investments in infrastructure, power, logistics, technology, and financing, restrictive trade laws could increase costs for domestic firms, squeeze producers, and reduce price competitiveness in global markets.
CPPE’s warning comes amid broader policy debates on how Nigeria should boost local processing. The government and some lawmakers have been considering stricter rules on primary-product exports, including proposals to mandate minimum levels of value addition before goods can leave the country. But CPPE sees danger in prematurely locking such requirements into law without first strengthening the underlying industrial ecosystem.
The organisation frames the issue as one of sequencing: capacity first, compulsion later. It recommends that policymakers prioritise investments that enable processors to absorb raw materials at scale. These should include reliable power supply, modern logistics, access to long-term affordable finance, improved technical skills, and enhanced competitiveness relative to global benchmarks.
CPPE also cautions that legislative restrictions could harm primary producers and rural economies by reducing farm-gate prices and shifting value artificially toward processors. Such distortions, it says, amount to implicit subsidies rather than productivity-driven gains, and they risk exacerbating poverty and reducing export earnings without generating sustainable industrial capacity.
The think tank’s stance reflects a broader analytical view that successful value-addition strategies must be grounded in economics, not protectionism. It calls for flexible, market-responsive policies managed through appropriate fiscal and trade instruments, rather than rigid statutory limits.
In conclusion, CPPE’s message is clear: Nigeria’s industrialisation goals are better served by building real competitive strength than by adopting legislative trade barriers that could disrupt markets and weaken the very sectors they aim to empower
