Watching Nigeria’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu stand toe to toe and shoulder to shoulder with the Chinese President Xi Jinpin during the recent Forum on China-Africa Co-operation (FOCAC 2024) which held in Beijing between Wednesday and Friday, September 4 – 6, 2024, evoked mixed feelings in this author. In one vein was the elation over the fact that in spite of the cascade of turbulences in Nigeria – including the recent series of hunger-driven protests, our own dear President, the Jagaban himself, was rubbing shoulders with a world leader in the category of the President of super-power nation of China, even if it was for mere diplomatic photo shoot. At least, the instance offered the world a brighter view of Nigeria, as a nation that stands to be counted wherever it mattered. ‘Naija no dey carry last’, as they would say in Nigerian pidgin English parlance.
In another vein, the weight of deeper reflections which pressed from the inner recesses of memory, conjure up the foreboding of disappointment that what was playing out was also just a phase in the dramatic sequences of a progressing swap of colonial masters, between the more than a century-old British-led rout of the African continent, and the now fast-growing encroachment by the Chinese political ‘dragon’. Of immediate concern to this author was the unrelenting assault by the Chinese on Nigeria’s local enterprise, jobs and resources. In as much as on the terrain of international diplomacy, the sweetness of diplomatese rules, on the streets and in the farms, forests, mines construction sites, and many other work places across Nigeria, the Chinese have become more than a pain in the neck of Nigerians.
While the foregoing may not be diplomatically and politically ‘correct’ for placing the issue in a brash context, hardly are the running processes under the auspices of whatever collaboration between Nigerian and China in general, and now FOCAC, anything different or better than put earlier. For as the facts bear out, if FOCAC is put to the true test of utility for Africa, it qualifies as a new diplomatic brace for ensuring unfettered access to humongous stocks of natural resources on the continent for China.
Given that plunder of the African continent is the name of the game for China, it evokes concern that every three years, China summons all African countries to Beijing, in a seeming slave call and under the bogus auspices of FOCAC. In effect China does not need to execute its expansionist agenda and colonial ambition by coming to individual African countries to ‘colonise’ same. Rather, by the circumstance of FOCAC it simply summons African leaders to come over to Beijing on the premise of a master-servant relationship.
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It, therefore, remains needful to interrogate the cost-benefit matrix of participation by African countries and in particular Nigeria in such circumstance of unequal yoking. Put succinctly, is the question over what ultimate dividends are the African countries deriving from their new found aggregation by China for feathering its own nest.
A pointer to this question was the reported complement of dividends which Tinubu’s visit to China brought to Nigeria. According to reports, while in China, President Bola Tinubu, visited the head office of the China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC) where he extolled the Chinese agency over its commendable role in Nigeria’s infrastructural development ventures, as that company is actively building virtually all current railway projects in the country. Also visited by Tinubu was the Huawei Technologies Beijing Research Centre which regaled him with ICT training services which are already in abundance across Nigeria.
The wholesale concession to the Chinese by Tinubu raises the question of how much of Nigerian content is in these ventures that only foreign enterprise seems eligible to be deployed in them. Nigerians have seen this trend of foreign relations in the past and have been bellyaching for a meaningful change toward inward looking disposition by the government. Hence a pass mark for the China trip by Tinubu may depend on how much it lifts Nigerians out of the present economic doldrums. And only time will tell so.
Perhaps the icing on the cake of purported attainments by Tinubu during the trip was what the president’s handlers described as the elevation of China-Nigeria ties from ‘Ordinary Strategic Partnership’ to a ‘Comprehensive Strategic Partnership’. It also must be left to be seen what the new level partnership will offer Nigeria in its roll out.
The point here is not that foreign trips and participation as well as committing Nigeria to wholesome partnerships with well-disposed nations is intrinsically bad. Rather the issue is that such engagements should be beneficial to Nigeria as much as is possible.
In the circumstance of every country striving to achieve comparative advantage in any area of interacting with other countries, no country should be blamed for thinking out of the box to achieve its objectives. This is just as it also remains the responsibility of any country to seek ways and means to secure its interests in a world of dog-eat-dog politics.
Against the backdrop of the recent nationwide hunger driven protests, it should not be a mystery that every new initiative of the administration as well as any step of the president is under watch by the citizenry with great expectations of wholesome dividends for the country. This is also so with respect to the China trip by President Tinubu.
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