The Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, NIIA, conducted an analysis of Nigeria-China relations on Thursday, during the inaugural Lagos Forum.
The event, organized by the NIIA in collaboration with the Chinese Consulate, Africa-China Economy Magazine, and Institute of African Studies, China, took place in Lagos.
Themed “The Chinese in the Nigerian Economy: Deepening Development Cooperation Towards a Shared Future, a Better World,” the forum explored strategies to achieve a community of shared future between the two nations. Questioning how China fits into Nigeria’s 4Ds foreign policy trajectory, Prof. Eghosa Osaghae, Director General, NIIA said China must expand its horizon beyond state and federal engagements and must move in the direction of the private sector. “The mainstay of economic diplomacy is the fact that it is the private sector that must drive our economy.”
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On demography, Osaghae said Nigeria is Africa’s giant, and China, as a great demographic power as well must be able to partner with Nigeria along the lines of reducing the poverty lines in the country.
“This has to have a manufacturing foundation, a productive economy foundation, and China must be part and parcel of that process.” Presenting a paper on the Nigerian perspective on China-Nigeria relations, Osaghae asserted that the struggle had always been how to deconstruct past structures, so that hegemony and super power, which would destroy multilateralism, is not reproduced.
“China must help Nigeria to become a manufacturing economy because one of the cardinal points about Chinese emergence as a big power was transfer of technology as a platform. And so, China must transfer technology to Nigeria, China, must domesticate technology in Nigeria,” he said.
Prof. Efem Ubi, Acting Director of Research and Studies, NIIA said a community of shared future could only be achieved through sincerity and commitment. He added that infrastructural development was a sine-qua-non for a community of shared future.
“Africa’s peace and security is a guarantor of a shared future and science and technology is a key component of that future. Our education is not tailored to industrialisation, and across Africa, we need to change our perception. We need to create a system of education that will add value to economic growth and development. In the absence of a shared future, we will continue to live in a world of rivalry, especially of superpower rivalry,” Ubi said.
He, however, noted that while China-Africa Cooperation, FOCAC, was a common good, Africa’s economic growth could not come from just being a part of the cooperation but by doing the right thing.
This, he said is being astutely concerned with issues of governance and putting in place the right economic policies that can engender development.
“If that is done, and the implementation of all resolutions and initiatives adopted at FOCAC, it is bound to bring about a community of shared future with prosperity to current and future generations of Africans and Chinese.”
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