Deputy Speaker of Nigeria’s House of Representatives, Honourable Benjamin Kalu, has called on European leaders to embrace “near-shoring” as a sustainable approach to tackling Africa’s economic challenges and curbing irregular migration.
Speaking at an online roundtable titled “EU-African Relations: An African Perspective”, Kalu said relocating technology and industries closer to Africa’s abundant raw materials would create jobs, foster industrialization, and ultimately reduce the mass exodus of African youths seeking better opportunities abroad.
Near-shoring, as Kalu described it, involves bringing advanced technology and industrial activities closer to the source of raw materials, allowing African nations to process and add value to their own resources, rather than exporting them in their raw form.
“What African youths are looking for is opportunity. They are running towards Europe because those opportunities are scarce at home,” Kalu said.
“The mechanism we can use to reverse that is to take the technology and industrialization closer to raw materials, create those opportunities around Africa, keep them in Africa, and have a win-win situation.”
Kalu, who also serves as the Chair of the Monetary and Financial Affairs Committee of the Pan-African Parliament (PAP), is currently leading a delegation of African lawmakers to the European Parliament in Brussels.
He noted that Europe’s vast technological expertise, when matched with Africa’s demographic advantage and natural resources, could redefine the global economic order for the better.
“It is projected through statistics that in the next five years, Africa will have 42% of the youth population globally. What are you doing with that? Europe cannot boast of that manpower,” he said.
“It is also a known fact that the European continent has an abundance of technology and funds, while Africa has what you don’t have, natural and mineral resources.”
He challenged Europe to genuinely partner with Africa by building factories and processing plants on the continent, rather than continuing the long-standing pattern of extracting raw materials and shipping them abroad for processing.
“Now, cocoa farms in Africa will no longer be known for being a cocoa farm, but they will be known as producers of chocolate. So, the whole nine yards of the production there in Africa will keep Africans within Africa,” Kalu stressed.
According to him, this approach aligns with the objectives of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which seeks to deepen intra-African trade and reduce reliance on external markets
“All we need is the capacity building to support us to make sure that we win. If we win and have a single market where Africa will trade more within itself, while Europe supports our manufacturing system, it will be a win-win for both continents,” he added.
In the meantime, Kalu also urged Europe to support Africa in developing its own security infrastructure, noting that past externally driven security interventions have failed to yield lasting results.
“Africa needs to own their own security system. And the way you can support Africa to do that is to ensure that those technologies that will help us enhance the security systems are available to us: the surveillance cameras, the aircraft,” he said. “With that, we will be able to protect our citizens.”
He also raised concern about the systemic bias in the global credit rating system, arguing that it has discouraged much-needed investment on the continent.
Kalu appealed to the European Union to support the African Credit Rating Agency (AFCRA), a newly established body aimed at offering more balanced evaluations of African economies.
“The fairer credit rating is another issue. The global financial architecture must be reformed,” he stated.
“The recent analytically flawed downgrading of our Facing Bank by Fitch Ratings is a glaring example. Supporting AFCRA will help foster sensitive assessment that measures actual, not just perceived, risk.”
He further noted that Nigeria is already taking steps to address some of these challenges internally.
“Nigeria is ready to meet Europe halfway. We have established our own credit enhancement instrument, including the newly created National Credit Guarantee Company to share risk and unlock investment,” he said.
In addition, Kalu urged Europe to rethink its approach to Africa, not as a continent in perpetual need of aid, but as a partner in development and innovation.
“The challenges facing our continent will not be solved by more aids or stricter border control, but by bold, strategic, and mutually beneficial industrial endorsement in Africa. Let us work together to build factories, not fences,” he said.
“Let us create a future where Africa’s greatest export is not its people, but the innovative products and services they create. Nigeria, and indeed Africa, is ready to build this shared future. We ask the EU to join us as we build the future that the coming generation will be proud of,” he said further.
