- Tinubu Backs NEPC to Boost Non-Oil Exports Through AfCFTA
- Cocoa beans alone made up 45.02% of total non-oil exports in the first quarter of 2025
- NEPC putting in place sustainability projects for the Nigeria’s non-oil exports sector
The Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) has revealed that President Bola Tinubu is taking major steps to boost Nigeria’s economy and restore its leadership position in Africa through the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement.
Eko Hot Blog reports that Mrs. Nonye Ayeni, Executive Director and CEO of NEPC, said the government has tasked NEPC with expanding the country’s non-oil exports by tapping into the broader African market under AfCFTA.
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She noted that Nigeria’s non-oil exports have already grown by over 200% within the ECOWAS region, with strong performance in products like urea, cashew nuts, sesame seeds, gold, and aluminum ingots.
Cocoa beans alone made up 45.02% of total non-oil exports in the first quarter of 2025, followed by urea/fertilizer at 19.32% and cashew nuts at 5.81%.
Ayeni added that President Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda aims to replicate ECOWAS success across Africa. She also praised the efforts of the Minister of Industry, Trade, and Investment, Dr. Jumoke Oduwole, who set up a committee involving key stakeholders to drive Nigeria’s participation in AfCFTA.
“So, we are working with Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, that’s our Supervisor and we are working with other relevant stakeholders to ensure that we scale up our non-oil exports revenue in the single largest market.
“So we are working hard to be number one in the continent. We are working with the AfCFTA Secretariat too. So just watch Nigeria is going to be the giant of Africa again in the near future.”
The NEPC CEO added: “We are opening our doors for everyone and we are growing in numbers and we are in the 36 states of the federation we have our operations there so we leverage on those 36 states and six regional offices grooming, mentoring, coaching, teaching them packaging across the whole region.”
While speaking on measures NEPC is putting in place on sustainability projects for the Nigeria’s non-oil exports sector, Ayeni spoke about the building of clusters and domestic exports warehouse.
She stated: “What we are looking at; we have already started working on it. We are talking about clusters. We want to bring everyone together in large numbers.
When you are talking about women, we are talking about SMEs they formed the bulk. And that is why we are building clusters trying to aggregate them together.
“We are also looking at some priority products and then we form clusters and ensure that even the woman that can only do one and a half container we join them together from that centre they can even do so many containers together and then we put mentorship to it.
We will assemble those experienced exporters to groom them and that is one thing we are doing.
“Also, the second thing is domestic exports warehouse to make sure we fight ways of reducing the logistics bottlenecks of our exporters.
We have done the pilot work where we looked at Diala and Ikorodu. You know it takes time to do it. “And so one of the things we do in NEPC is advocacy. So, we can’t do it alone, so we require collaboration.
Collaboration with all the relevant agencies and even private institutions. “And first of all, you would be amazed with the meetings we had with all the agencies.
All of us came together and had NAQS, we had NPIS, we had Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment that was there with us. In fact, the meeting was chaired by the Permanent Secretary (PS).
We have Nigerian Shippers Council looking at the logistics. “We set up a committee. So domestic exports warehouse will have to reduce the challenges to be like a one-stop shop.
Nigeria Customs Service was also there you can see that this government with it’s renewed hope agenda is doing a lot and there is a lot happening.”
While reacting to Nigeria’s 200 per cent products capturing of ECOWAS region, the NEPC Executive Director said, “If you see my press briefing report I did, you would see that in the last quarter, Q on Q, that is comparing 1Q of 2025 against 1Q of 2024, in ECOWAS, we grew more significant by over 200 per cent in non-oil exports.
