President Muhammad Buhari has signed the African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement.

Buhari signed the pan-African agreement at the 12th Extraordinary Session of the Assembly of the Union on AfCFTA and the First Mid-Year Coordination Meeting of the African Union and the Regional Economic Communities in Niamey, Niger Republic.

By signing the document in the morning hours of Sunday, Nigeria becomes the 53rd county in Africa to sign the AfCFTA agreement.

The signing came after a presidential panel set up to look into the AfCFTA advised that Nigeria would benefit economically from the envisaged trade relations with other African countries.

However, the panel noted that some negative impacts included massive smuggling that could turn Nigeria into a dumping ground for goods produced outside of Africa.