“It’s coming home” “it’s coming home” was a chorus echoing in and outside England in the build up of UEFA Euro 2020 final match between Italy and England.

The mantra, which is based on football’s English origin, stamped the long held hope of the English national team bringing a trophy home for the first time since 1968. The Three Lions had shown exceptional performance from the start of the tournament, challenging the failure stereotype that has followed it in other outings and hyping the hope of fans.

Alas, in the end, it didn’t come home. It stopped short at the doorpost, shattering the hope of millions and throwing Black members of the English team open to racism.

The Sunday night game went into penalty shootout after the match ended 1-1, following Italy’s Bonucci’s 67th minute comeback goal which canceled England’s Shaw two minute early 1-0 lead.

It was England’s first major final in 55 years. Being played in Wembley, the fans had gathered in thousands in the squares, defying covid warnings. Their wait for victory turned sour when Bukayo Saka, 19,  Jadon Sancho, 21, and Marcus Rashford, 23, all Black players, missed their penalties.

It was a defining moment that England’s coach Gareth Southgate can reckon with. He had missed a similar penalty in 1996, and was quick to console the youngsters. In football, these things happen, they’re part of the game – losing and winning. But to English fans, the Black players were culpable, their skin color made England lose.

“It’s coming home until the ni**ers ruined it,” an English fan wrote on social media.

“Every ni ** er missed a pen. Rashford, Sancho, Saka go kill yourselves ni ** ers monkeys, or return to your natural habitat of growing bananas. Fu**ing slaves,” another wrote.

Although there has been resounding support for the embattled players who have given their best to bring England to the final, the racial attacks targeting the Black players have once again exposed the depth of racism in England. Recently, England players started taking a knee before the kickoff of matches. A practice that has attracted mixed reactions. It was notable in England’s opening match against Croatia, where boos were drowned by applause.

Southgate assembled a very young diverse team, who by their performance, toppled the woeful memories of the past. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said “they have done the nation proud and deserve great credit,” an assessment many others believe.

However, in the end, expectation does not determine what happens in the field. So once again, it did not come home. But unlike France and other national sides with diverse teams, who have learnt to a great extent, to keep skin color away from the beautiful game, English fans’ racial tantrums show England still has a deep-seated race problem.

England wanted to party but football happened. Now, three young men are blamed. Saka, Sancho and Rashford all missed penalties against Italy during Sunday’s Euro 2020 finals; Italy took the cup home. The young men are united by one thing: they are African-Europeans.

Sure, what does it have to do with a Nigerian or Nigeria? It has to do with many who are praying that Nigeria does poorly in the Tokyo Olympics Basketball because mainly southerners are representing the nation in the basketball game

This is the fact: for all the greats of England, they have not been this close for decades in football tournaments. And some of their greats have missed penalties. There is no need to bring racism into this and diminish what these young men have accomplished.

And Nigerians hoping for our team to mess up should grow up: there are more important things to pray for than asking God or Allah to make a team lose a game!

I thought I was going to do finance, while in banking, before I switched back to engineering. But while in banking, all my academic studies focused on Currency and Trade. Even as a PhD student in Johns Hopkins University, I was attending summits of economists, working with African Union and World Bank. This morning I made a comment on the challenges of AfCFTA and the potential welfare losses on a single currency, even in ECOWAS. Some questions via inmails. Here is a lead paper I wrote and delivered in the African Union Congress, making a case that prior convergence of our regional economies is important before anything continental.

Our markets are evidently heterogeneous with pockets of dominant nations in each block. For example, in ECOWAS, if we have a supranational bank, controlling the monetary policies of all the nations (each country will lose the autonomy of its central bank), one of the most important tools, at national levels, will go. Take Nigeria, the ability to devalue the naira during severe oil price misalignment will vanish.

So without the Central Bank of Nigeria being in existence to do that, any shock Nigeria is experiencing will ripple through to other small nations like Ivory Coast and Benin Republic even though they have nothing to do with oil.

So a nuanced and careful implementation is necessary before Nigeria’s mess becomes ECOWAS mess, and in that process makes Nigeria the denominator. Yet, the AfCFTA is a necessary initiative as Africa needs to trade more closely. But rushing to any currency union would be a mistake.

We have pockets of currency unions but they have not delivered any special miracle. If you do not improve productivity, your currency efficiency gains become marginal. I listed some pertinent enablers in this Harvard Business Review piece.

Comment on LinkedIn Feed

Comment: I find it interesting you suggest convergence of regional heterogeneous economies, before anything continental can occur, while simultaneously explaining the importance monetary policy has on dominant nations like Nigeria to affect currency values to offset fluctuations in commodity prices – all the while advocating for a single currency. In one hand you’re saying dominant nations need the autonomy to control their own currency, then in the other hand you’re saying they don’t (“each country will lose the autonomy of its central bank”).

China’s success is because they had sole ability to affect their currency. Keeping their currency artificially low allowed massive amounts of FDI inflows to invest in industrialization, and as you mention, ultimately AI. But creating one currency for the entire 54 nation trading block will be extremely difficult and will have unbalanced affects throughout the continent. One of the reasons Brexit occurred is because England wanted complete autonomy over their own currency value decisions.

AfCFTA’s implementation and success is hugely important to the continent but a single currency is not mandatory for the agreement to be successful. We only have to look at other successful trading blocks..

USMCA(NAFTA), AEC, and APEC to name a few. Those trading blocks are successful and do not have common currencies. It is true that a common currency will remove some inherent barriers for intra-continental trade but may have negative affects (reduced FDI for example) on smaller nations who’s comparative advantage is a lower currency value – as you point out, “The smaller economies affected could experience welfare losses, making them worse off than before the integration.” I wonder if you would advocate for a single continental currency if you were from Sierra Leon and not Nigeria.

You also mention improving infrastructure and education as ways to advance the continent. Of course, these are low hanging fruits. But I submit that according to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, one can not obtain or concentrate on higher level needs until the lower level has been achieved/satisfied. With secure, consistent, and nutritious food being the lowest level. One can’t attend school while searching for food, or concentrate in class on empty bellies. First and foremost Africa needs to develop sustainable agribusiness. the level of agriculture in much of Africa is hundreds of years behind that of advanced nations all around the world.

Currently Africa sells its natural resources to obtain capital to spend on food. They are a net importer of food. This has to stop. Africa should be a net exporter not importer. Capital inflows from resource sales should be used to invest in infrastructure, (Instead loans from external governments, like China, are used for infrastructure) and investing in creating a sustainable and profitable agribusiness sector and to protect REGIONAL currencies. Loans should be used to create industries that attract FDI and investment in value added products that support continued operational revenue and ultimately accumulate wealth. Only with the elimination of wide spread poverty, and uplifting millions, can Africa realize their own sustainable industrial and technological revolutions like China.

Focusing only on Intra-African trade serves to recycle the same currency throughout the continent. Without capital inflows there will be no growth for sustainable business sectors.

-Resource sales for agribusiness, infrastructure, & currency value hedging.
-Loans to produce industry, value added products, & increased FDI.
=Sufficient food for the continent, greatly increased employment & drastic decrease in poverty.

My response: good points there. I must confess that all the options have challenges and I am not saying that any option is easy. Looking at my paper in the African Union, I had argued that if we MUST have a single currency, we must stabilize the regions first before we move continental. Yet, we will struggle to stabilize the regions if the dominant economies continue to struggle. For example, under ECOWAS, if we have one monetary union, the impact of Nigeria will become asymmetric,  neutralizing anything Gambia, Benin Republic etc do.

Nonetheless, because things are not well optimized currently, I also do think we need to do something since we are underperforming. So, we could take risks even though they could be extremely “economically suicidal” if things get out of hand. But in all, I do not think these initiatives will matter if Africa does not improve productivity. But I recognize that some do argue that AfCFTA can indeed improve productivity. The debate continues…

Join us tomorrow (Tuesday)  as we discuss Intellectual Property: Strategy, Management & Commercialization with Ifeanyi E. Okonkwo of University of Cape Town & Jackson, Etti & Edu at 7pm WAT.

Ifeanyi E. Okonkwo is a Legal Practitioner focused on Intellectual property, technology, entertainment, and business law practice. As a Legal Practitioner (Dip; LLB, BL; LLM), he has many years experience in the field and has argued some novel cases on IP-Tech. He is an  Intellectual Property, Corporate-Commercial professional at Jackson, Etti & Edu.

To learn more about Tekedia Mini-MBA, go here. 

Good People, the date is July 27, 2021 and Ify Ogo, PhD will anchor Tekedia Mini-MBA Live. The topic will be “Understanding AfCFTA for Businesses”.

Dr. Ify Ogo is a legal economist and trade specialist. Her experience includes working as the UNDP Regional Coordination Specialist on the AfCFTA, as well as Trade Policy Expert at the African Trade Policy Centre, UN Economic Commission for Africa, where she led the trade in services work stream, and was a focal point for trade diversification covering the digital economy, blue economy and green economy portfolios. Ify has also supported the AfCFTA negotiations, as well as country-level implementation processes. Other roles have included investment advisory within the private and public sectors.

We are very excited that one of the best in this domain is coming to Tekedia Institute. Get your questions ready. I have mine already: “how will AfCFTA improve the Oriendu market in Ovim, Abia state?”.

The Zoom link will be ready in the Board as we get closer to the date.