Otunba Michael Ajayi is the Director General of Ghana, Nigeria Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the facilitator of the just ended First Made in Ghana Solo Exhibition in Nigeria.

In this interview with Ogidi-Olu Onikanga-Ajpon of GhanaWeb.com in Nigeria, he recounts the success of the exhibition, despite challenges.

Since when have you been working on First Made in Ghana Solo Exhibition? It has started since 2009; that was the first time I made contact with Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), and Ghana High Commission in Nigeria. And we have been on it since then and it’s so great that it has finally materialized.

How would you describe the first Made in Ghana Exhibition that lasted for five days in Nigeria?

First and foremost, it has been a milestone because this is the first time we will be having First Made in Ghana Solo expo in Nigeria. Secondly, because of the political state of things in Ghana, as at the time of the expo, no one expected we would have this impressive response.

Also, we succeeded in ensuring that we did not have participants from one sector of the economy, because we had various people from various sectors of the economy that featured at the exhibition ground such as cable and wire, beverages, banks, hotel and hospitality etc, which made it a diversified expo.

Unlike any other expo, we did goods and personal insurance for all our exhibitors courtesy of NEM Insurance. We had seminar where we educated the participants on “How To Do Business in Nigeria” and we involved a lawyer, a representative of Nigeria Investment Promotion Centre (NIPC) and Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC). We took them on a tour to Lagos market. So, it was more than just an exhibition.

Findings revealed that many Nigerians were expecting to see kente, beads and other Ghanaian made cloths, looking at the thirst of Nigerians for Ghanaian clothing materials and fashion accessories, but it wasn’t so. What was responsible for this?

Unfortunately, this is a self determining expo. We cannot compel people to partake. We cannot also dispute the fact that there are certain goods that are on the prohibition list. All we did was to encourage and we are successful in doing that, though AGI and through the Ghana Chamber of Commerce and through Ghana Export Promotion Authority and some of them has fared well.

As far as I am concern, it was a success. Some of the exhibitors got their products ordered for the very first day the exhibition started. Even bankers have got customers who opened account with them. Moreover, expo is not only about sales, it’s about making contacts; finding partners, networking and understanding the market. So far, I can say it was a success and I believe by the time we will be having another expo, we will definitely have a larger crowd.

One of the issues raised at the “How To Do Business in Nigeria” seminar was the issue of humanly created barriers by custom officers, most especially at Benin Republic, which discourages manufacturers and exporters from bringing their products to Nigeria. What is the measure that could be put in place, to minimize such challenges?

This is the issue that has led our company to devote attention to facilitating trade across the border. We started since 2007 when we set up Ghana, Nigeria summit which was declared opened by His Excellency, President John Kufuor at the time. And the whole idea was to bring the private sector and the public sector together in other to find solution to these barriers. In the course of that summit, we included Togo and Benin, so that moved us from having a bilateral summit to having Ghana-Togo-Nigeria summit, and there were custom, immigration officers represented from all the four countries. However, it’s an ongoing effort. For the first time, we have Ghanaians coming to showcase their products in Nigeria. It’s different from participating in a trade fair because it was for Ghana exclusively. We believe these problems of our borders can be resolve if the various governments concerned can be committed to their promise of integration. Some of the participants raised concern about their fear of doing business in Nigeria. What do you have to say this? What I have to say is that Ghanaian manufacturers and exporters interested in doing business in Nigeria should first and foremost kill their fear. It is true that a lot of them have fears coming to Nigeria. The funny part of it is that some of them who came for the exhibition don’t want to go back, because they have started changing their travel dates simply because they had a good time in Nigeria. Also, they have realized that Ghana and Nigeria are virtually the same thing. It’s even difficult to differentiate between Nigerian and a Ghanaian. So, I guess it’s only with traveling and interaction that this issue can be addressed. Where do we go from here, after the 2013 first Made in Ghana Solo Exhibition? We go from here to making this an annual event. We go from here to make it a bilateral event by making a Nigeria expo in Ghana. We also intend to make it an ECOWAS project and from through events like this, we hope all the barriers at the borders will be minimized.