WAES 2025: President Tinubu Urges Deeper Regional Integration
Oru Leonard
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has urged West African leaders to commit to a new era of economic collaboration and regional development at the inaugural West Africa Economic Summit (WAES) in Abuja. The summit aims to deepen regional economic integration, enhance trade, and investment cooperation across the sub-region.
Speaking during his key note address President Tinubu lamented that intra-regional trade in West Africa remains below 10%, attributing this to coordination failures rather than lack of willpower.
He emphasized the need to strengthen regional value chains, invest in modern infrastructure, and align economic policies to boost intra-regional trade.
While highlighting the West Africa’s youthful population as a significant asset, he warned that the demographic promise could become a liability if not matched with investments in education, innovation, and productive enterprise.
Tinubu called for an end to the “pit-to-port” dependency, urging West African nations to invest in local processing and regional manufacturing to turn mineral wealth into domestic economic value, jobs, technology, and manufacturing.
The President urged the summit to produce actionable outcomes, including
a renewed commitment to ease of doing business, enhanced intra-regional trade, improved infrastructure connectivity and innovative ideas to move people from poverty to prosperity.
The Nigerian President emphasized the need for unity and cooperation among West African nations, stating that “we must design regional supply chains, energy networks, and data frameworks together — or they will collapse separately”, he added, as he also called for governments to provide the right environment, law, and order, while the private sector drives growth.
