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Here is a riddle. I
board a plane in Lagos, Nigeria at 7.30am. Thirteen hours and two plane
changes later, I finally arrive at my destination tired and dirty but
glad that the journey is finally over. So which city in this wide world
am I visiting? Is it Kuala Lumpur, Beijing, Doha, Dubai or some
far-flung exotic corner of the world? No, nothing like that, in fact my
plane hopping and many hours have not taken me beyond the West Africa
region. All of the travelling hours and the three plane rides have
taken me only as far as Bamako, Mali’s capital which is just some 900
miles or so from Lagos.

Anecdotal evidence
from friends had always suggested that travelling within the West
Africa region is a nightmare, but not having experienced it, I always
thought the stories were somewhat exaggerated; not anymore. In order to
visit Bamako, I first had to fly to Accra and wait a few hours, after
which I boarded another plane and made my way back, yes you read
correctly, back to Togo. Another four hours later, I was on another
plane heading to Niamey from which after a two-hour wait, I finally
embark on the final leg of my trip to Bamako.

This trip, if I were flying directly from Lagos to Bamako would have lasted no more than two hours.

The problem of a
lack of functioning infrastructure within the sub region is more than
an irritation; it comes with a heavy economic price, an inability to
maximise trade among the various countries in the sub region. Figures
available show that just 10 percent of total trade by Economic
Community of West Africa countries (ECOWAS) both imports and exports,
is to other West African nations.

Another example
that may bring home the seriousness of the problem is this, according
to EU figures ‘‘ Ghana sends less than 3% of its exports to neighboring
Benin (compared with 49% to the EU).

However, this is
not a problem that is peculiar to the sub-region, all across the
continent we are losing opportunities that can allow us to grow
economically because we lack the basic infrastructure to trade with
each other. Here is another example, this also taken from an EU
produced document, (sadly as with a lot of other things we rely on
others to tell us about ourselves) ‘‘ it costs as much to move a
container from Mombasa to Kampala as it does from Mombasa to Shanghai.’’

The total value of
trade between Africa and the EU in 2008 was EUR 278 billion; this is
for both imports and exports. Can you try and imagine the impact on the
continent if this level of trade was taking place among African
countries?

The wealth that will be created through job creation and other value added services would immediately transform our societies.

While it is true a
lot of unofficial trading takes place that is not captured by the
numbers, the informed consensus is that trade within African countries
is miniscule compared to trade with other regions.

It also pales in
significance when compared to the volume of trade among Western
European countries, which is 60 percent of their total trade.

The World Bank has
estimated that Africa has a population about 1 billion potential
consumers and says’’ it is a powerful engine for growth, employment and
intra-African trade, especially at a time when other markets are
contracting in the wake of the global financial crisis’’

But we are not
talking advantage of this. At various forums the obstacles to making
trade flourish have been identified and solutions proffered, yet we
seem to lack the will to implement the necessary measures.

The president of
Coca-Cola South Africa, William Egbe, is on the record as saying ‘‘ a
litany of measures aimed at curbing behind-the-border trade
constraints; improving trade facilitation and logistics and reforming
customs unions and other regional trade institutions continue to
languish in drawers, awaiting implementation’’.

This is tragic
because Africa does not need to look to any other place for the panacea
for poverty and many other ills. The solution is staring us in the
face. It is time to dust those documents that Mr. Egbe refers to and
begin to implement them, one item at a time. The difference this will
make will be immediate.

As for my arduous trip to Mali, it is

symptomatic of the
wider issues we face on this continent and these sorts of trips are
only one obstacle among many to flourishing trade among African
countries. If, however, we can start by tackling this one area by
making travel easy it would be a big first step. Let us build a decent
road/ rail network and encourage the setting up of airlines that will
offer cheap direct flights to major African cities. Sectors like
tourism would receive a boost. There are many like me who I am sure
would love to visit Mali if only to see the world heritage

sites in Timbuktu. As things stand, many won’t even be tempted to make the journey, as it is tedious and expensive.