Is Nigeria the 24th province of China?

Daddy, Is everything made in China”? The rather disarming question came from this author’s young daughter when she was just eight years old, and it formed the theme of an earlier article that appeared on this column. According to her then, much of her daily experiences revolved around objects that bore the inscription “Made in China”. And true to her observation - her school bag, pencils, erasers, mathematical set, lunch box and much of the school furniture were just some items that were branded “Made in China”.

The poignancy of this question from such a minor drove this author to raise it in a class discussion during an Executive Development Programme (EDP) at the Wharton Business School, University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, USA. The class comprised 60 top professionals from different countries with the Chinese numbering as many as twelve featuring both those from the homeland and other naturalised or based in the US. The affirmative response to the question by the Chinese was not surprising, as such suited their nationalistic aspirations. But the more numerous Americans in the class countered unanimously with the question “how long do these Chinese products actually last”? To that question a witty Chinese answered - “forever”.

That banter at Wharton conveniently serves as a throwback to the current imbalanced dalliance between the Nigerian government and that of the Peoples Republic of China. Signals from the innards of this country’s leadership community point to the unmistakeable and misguided thinking that the solutions to all of Nigeria’s problems could be made in China. While official policy may not have been expressly stated by the Nigerian government accordingly, the play-out of serial postures and activities speak louder than words in betraying the unmasked subjugation of this country’s sovereignty to the sway of China’s hegemonic aspirations, as demonstrated in the face of that country’s global, economic expansionist agenda. Behind the beautiful smiles by the endless chain of diplomatic visitors from that country to Nigeria and similar shows of warm welcome by the Chinese while hosting our visiting government officials, lies the legitimate desire to make Nigeria one of their provinces - perhaps the 24th province of China, even as a satellite territory.

And from the signals offered China by the Nigerian leadership, the Chinese do not need to travel here to colonise this country like the British laboured to do in the past. Rather the leaders of the country voluntarily go to beg China cap in hand, to come and take over the country. To justify this contention is a complement of some of the instances that question the element of reciprocity in the relationship between Nigeria and China. Between August 2016 and just last week, President Muhamadu Buhari had sent two requests to the National Assembly in respect of approval of loans in which China would provide the lion shares. In particular, the latest letter of last week had the President urging the National Assembly to expedite With the country’s passion for hooking up on China’s apron strings and dependency on Chinese handouts, Nigerians may be confining themselves to relishing the transient dividends of eating fresh fish for now, and foregoing the more profound benefits of engaging in fishing by themselves action on the grounds that China’s loans to African countries were running out of stock. This particular loan is to fund the development of railway projects in Nigeria among other areas.

To accentuate the import of the primacy placed on Chinese loans the following are some instances. Recently the Minister of Agriculture Chief Audu Ogbe and Governor of Zamfara State Abdulaziz Yari revealed that the Chinese are giving the country a loan of $4.5 billion for the acquisition of agriculture equipment and implements such as tractors, graders, water pumps and unmistakeably some hoes and cutlasses. Along the line is also the story that Nigeria has secured another ‘project tied’ loan of $ 6 billion for infrastructure development across the country. This accounts for the present flurry of Chinese supervised projects that are ongoing in some parts of the country on which even the road markers must parade yellow faces.

Last year, in the course of the visit of Buhari to China, Nigeria negotiated a loan package of $20 billion which due to its size vis a vis Nigeria’s fiscal circumstances, apparently rattled the ordinarily stoic Chinese establishment, leading them to demand outright, direct oversight of the Nigerian government in order to recover their money. The outcome of that initiative is yet to grace the country’s public space.

While the foregoing only profiles the dependency of the Nigerian government on China to escape from the vagaries of the present economic downturn, the Nigerian private sector features a near take-over by Chinese business men of several small scale business activities in which Nigerian small and medium scale entrepreneurship thrives. Today, Nigerian operators in virtually any business are facing stiff completion from Chinese rivals who enjoy the backing of their home government to establish in Nigeria. Meanwhile these same Nigerians are left to scrounge on the half-hearted efforts of sundry statutory business support agencies, whose mission to provide adequate protection to the former, is executed in the breach.

Put in context, the grouse of this piece lies not in the competence of the Chinese to provide neither the financial bailout nor the technical endowment for helping Nigeria out of its present predicament. The issue at stake is the apparent disconnect between the sought-after assistance from China and the in-house capacity as well as disposition of the Nigerian government to absorb and build on the complement of aid packages from China, which so far are translating into a tacit abdication of sovereignty, if not now then in the near future. This is especially so when in the name of promoting bilateral relations with ‘project tied’ loans, Nigeria concedes the very soul of its economy which is domestic productivity.

A key concern in this regard is the recently launched Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP), which as had been advocated in an earlier edition of this column, has as its lynch pin the promotion of domestic productivity in the spirit of ‘Nigeria First’. Against the backdrop of the ERGP dispensation, not a few Nigerians are bothered by how this fixation on Chinese handouts will supersede the nationwide marshalling of the cream of local enterprise of Nigerians, in the all important effort to move the country out of its danger zone. This is especially acute when it is universally acknowledged, that the best help is self-help.

There is a proverb from the same Chinese that “when you give a man a fish, you feed him for one day. But when you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime”. With the country’s passion for hooking up on China’s apron strings and dependency on Chinese handouts, Nigerians may be confining themselves to relishing the transient dividends of eating fresh fish for now, and foregoing the more profound benefits of engaging in fishing by themselves, and thereby securing a future of economic and political liberty in an atmosphere of self-determination.