A POLITICAL ECONOMY OF NIGERIA’S QUEST FOR INTERNATIONAL TRADE AND GLOBAL MARKET: AN ARGUMENT FOR WEST AFRICAN REGIONAL MARKET, 2015 - 2023

Abstract

This paper investigated the political economy of Nigeria’s quest for international trade and global market in the prism of contemporary time leveraging on the domestic industries and trade among the developing economies of West African Countries and the global market for analysis. That said, the study assessed the relevance of Nigeria championing a global argument for West African Regional trade at the global market through the WTO. To realize this objective, Comparative Advantage, Standard Custom Union and ‘Regional Mercantilism’ theories were used as the study framework. Data were collected from secondary sources and inferential statistics of computed simple percentage table drawn out from data collated from secondary sources were used for analysis. The findings are that trade openness alone cannot boost the progress of growth on the political economy of market and trade in the developing economy of West Africa, and the adoption of trade protectionism measures by West African states against imports from outside their regional bloc would likely trigger a trade war. From the findings, one among the three recommendations put forward is the imperative for the Nigerian government to lead and champion the argument to the international trade regime to grant West African Regional market and trade some privileges to practice some mercantilist policies and attitudes which is believed will accrue the gains of international trade from the highly competitive global market to the West African sub-regional markets and economy