Tribune Jonathan’s visit to China · Written by David · Thursday, 18 July 2013 00:00 AFTER bilateral talks between Presidents Jonathan and Xi Jinping and their delegations in China recently, five agreements covering financial, trade, economic, technical and cultural relations between the two countries were initialled by both leaders thus strengthening further their existing 43-year-old diplomatic relations. With the agreements specifically including a low interest loan granted to Nigeria by China, it may be exciting for Nigeria to have diversified her international linkages with the addition of a beckoning emergent world power like China. However, it will be tragic if the country is merely replacing her colonial masters and former creditors with a new one which China may represent if the fact that any relationship between two unequal partners is by definition exploitative is taken into consideration. When diplomatic relations started with China in 1970, it is instructive to note that country was nowhere near the second world largest economy which it is today. While it has grown and developed phenomenally, Nigeria has experienced the exact opposite, a dwindling, monolithic economy aggravated by a shrinking human capital. As a matter of fact, the present crop of Nigerian leaders should be alarmed by the retrogression which the country has suffered during the same years that China has incredibly grown into global recognition to the extent that without delusion, the bilateral talks took place between an emergent world power and another country in its tethers, desperate for survival. There is therefore a need to be cautious about the excitement which the seeming success of the bilateral talks, that have earned Nigeria a putative reprieve from her economic woes has generated. In the first place, Nigeria has a poor record with foreign loans. The loans that have been taken in the past have not been properly accounted for in terms of validating the projects for which the loans have been taken and the scourge of corruption which has engulfed the essence of the country does not recommend any increase in the loans tally against the country’s name. It should be clear that while China will need to expand its market in Africa and therefore pursue diplomatic relations in that direction, it is certainly not a charity and like any serious country, it will put its mouth where its money is ensuring that it gets the maximum advantages that can thus ensue. It is therefore incumbent on the present crop of leaders in Nigeria to put the country’s economic and developmental interests ahead of other considerations in the implementation of the agreements. For instance, there have been complaints about the quality of Chinese products and unscrupulous businessmen in Nigeria have cashed in on the lax structure in the country to bring in such cheap poor quality products to maximise profits. China will do well to live down this reputation by insisting on the best international trade practices. It is not enough to measure the volume of trade in terms of the size of the dollars without commensurate mutual satisfaction and development between the two countries. We are of the opinion that the situation in which the development of Nigeria in any form will be located in the benevolence or concessions of another country in the guise of loans or Direct Foreign Investment (DFI) is deplorable and shameful especially because these countries that are being wooed as investors or creditors did not develop by depending on such benevolence of others. It is interesting to note for instance that these developed economies of the world were made possible by their human capital. Sadly, much of Nigeria’s human capital is domiciled abroad and those at home are either discountenanced or underdeveloped and the development of the country has been put at the behest of the sale of crude oil. It is therefore hardly surprising that Nigeria has always negotiated from a position of weakness for the most part in its bilateral talks. This should be unacceptable and embarrassing to the country’s leadership enough to stop treading this shameful path. The statement from the Presidency that the agreement included the framework on comprehensive financial cooperation in support of Nigeria’s economic development and a preferential buyer credit agreement for Nigeria’s four airports expansion project, agreement on economic and technical cooperation between Nigeria and China, an agreement on mutual visa exemption and so forth showed that the country had little to offer in the exchange. The bilateral talks in truth were plainly about what Nigeria stands to gain from China’s expertise in the main.
Posted on: Fri, 19 Jul 2013 10:46:33 +0000
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