Join BRICS, Nigeria has no business with poverty — Falana tells FG

…Urges government to prioritise local refining, alternative economic policies By Favour Ulebor, Abuja A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Femi Falana, has urged the Federal Government to join the BRICS economic bloc and adopt alternative economic policies, declaring that Nigeria has no business with poverty. Falana made the call while delivering the keynote address at the sixth edition of the Frontier Discourse Annual Public Lecture Series and Awards, organised by Pacesetter Frontier Magazine in Abuja on Tuesday.

The human rights lawyer urged the government to reduce Nigeria’s dependence on imported petroleum products by strengthening domestic refining capacity and pursuing economic policies that promote local production and improve citizens’ welfare. He questioned why Nigeria, despite being a major crude oil-producing country, continued to rely on imported petroleum products to meet domestic consumption needs.

Falana also called on the government to explore opportunities offered by BRICS, describing the economic bloc as an organisation established to challenge the dominance of the United States dollar and promote trade among member countries using their respective currencies. He argued that Nigeria needed to reconsider its dependence on economic policies promoted by the Bretton Woods institutions, including the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

He said, “Even within the bourgeois paradigm, within the bourgeois framework, consider some of them, including refining crude oil for domestic consumption in Nigeria. “No country in the world, none, has ever been developed by implementing the policies of these Bretton Woods institutions that were set up to underdevelop the economies of third world countries.

“Join, join, join, not be a member country. Join the BRICS. I’m sure you know about the BRICS.” Explaining his position, Falana said the bloc offered opportunities for countries to challenge the dominance of the dollar and strengthen economic cooperation through local currency trade. “It’s an organisation set up to challenge the dominance of the dollar, to challenge the West, to mould the full-fledged members so that we can take advantage and trade among ourselves in your own currencies,” he said.

The lawyer also said he had challenged what he described as the abandonment of the Nigeria-China currency swap arrangement. He further raised concerns over revenue losses associated with the suspension of cargo tracking, citing a Nigerian government report produced in 2021. According to him, the report showed that Nigeria lost $32bn during the 13 years in which cargo tracking was suspended, while another $10bn was lost between 2021 and 2025.

He said the figures highlighted revenue leakages and untapped economic opportunities that the government needed to address. Falana clarified that he was not advocating the socialist reconstruction of Nigeria but argued that the government could adopt policies capable of improving the welfare of citizens within the existing capitalist framework. “I’m not campaigning here for the socialist reconstruction of Nigeria.

That will be done elsewhere. But within your own capitalist ethos, you can run this economy in a way that will be beneficial to the entirety of the Nigerian people. “There can be no prosperity when you implement neoliberal policies,” he said. He urged the Federal Government to reconsider economic policies promoted by the IMF and the World Bank and explore alternative programmes that prioritise domestic production, economic self-reliance and the welfare of Nigerians.