WTO urges Nigeria to plan for non-oil future

The Director General of the World Trade Organisation, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has advised Nigeria to plan for a future without revenues from fossil fuels as the world transits to renewable energy.

Speaking during a press conference in Abuja, Dr Okonjo-Iweala said as other countries ban the use of fossil fuels and move to the use of electric cars, Nigeria will have no market for oil and gas.

“Nigeria must start thinking of a just transition and since Africa and Nigeria don’t emit most of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, we can ask other countries that we are interested in helping on climate change, but could we have a reasonable period of time within which we can transit from the use of fossil fuels,” she said.

The WTO boss said Nigeria could negotiate for more time to use fossil fuel domestically during the transition period.

“We really need to move to renewable energy because there will be no demands for our products and we ourselves want to contribute to this issue of mitigating carbon emissions.”

Executive Director of the Nigeria Export Promotion Council (NEPC) Olusegun Awolowo said the council developed a zero oil plan to promote an export-led development agenda for Nigeria

“A clear area of focus for us has been a drive to gain significant participation of women in non-oil exports.”

Awolowo said the SheTrades programme of the council, meant to ramp up the participation of women in trade and export business, has been successful.