The Nation Newspaper

Tag: China-Africa

  • China 15th 5-year-plan and future of China-Africa cooperation

    China 15th 5-year-plan and future of China-Africa cooperation

    • By Tunde Rahman

    In 1985, the American magazine Newsweek reported that the number of high-rise buildings in Shanghai, China’s biggest commercial city, could be counted on the finger tips.

    By 2005, 20 years later, when I had the first opportunity to visit Beijing and Shanghai as part of China-Africa Editors’ Delegation touring that Asian country, skyscrapers had become a common feature of the entire landscape of China. China had become a huge construction yard. There was visible economic boom. 

    Today, although China now faces significant economic headwinds, with growth moderating in the face of structural constraints, including declining working age population, diminishing returns on investment, and slowing productivity growth, it remains, nonetheless, one of the largest global economies. 

    According to a report by the World Bank Group, the country’s real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth – a common measure of economic activity and size –slowed from double-digit annual increases during the 2000s to 5.3% in this year’s second quarter. China continues to be a major global trading partner, regardless, ranking as the world’s second-largest economy, only behind the United States.

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    China’s monumental development was not a chance occurrence. It came by deliberate, continuous and consistent planning. China has continued to plan, and doing so comprehensively.

    Just last week, the Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China took place in Beijing. Held from October 20-23, 2025, at that session, China unfolded its 15th five-year development plan.

    As we gather today to discuss the future of Africa-China cooperation in the context of China’s 15th Five-Year Plan, it is important to first enumerate some of the highlights of this new five-year plan (2026-2030), the significance of the bilateral relationship between China and Africa (with particular reference to Nigeria), and its potential for mutual benefit.

    China’s 15th five-year plan highlights a few thematic priority areas, which include economic transformation, digital economy, global economic governance, and the Belt and Road Initiative that has been a cornerstone of China–Africa cooperation. This present plan emphasizes high quality development, focusing on technological innovation, green development and economic restructuring.

     On digital economy, the plan prioritises digital infrastructure, artificial intelligence and data-driven industries. With regard to global economic governance, China aims to play a more active role globally, promoting free trade and investment.

    The five-year plan, no doubt, offers unique opportunities for Africa. This is in terms of infrastructural development, industrialization, partnership in boosting agriculture and technological innovation. China’s expertise in infrastructure development can help bridge Africa’s infrastructure gap, promoting economic growth and development, and creating opportunities for job creation and economic diversification.

     At present, the partnership between China and Africa has recorded remarkable achievements in the past five years.

    And these gains in various fields are evident. For instance, at the Forum on China–Africa Cooperation Beijing Summit held last September, President Xi Jinping announced zero tariff treatment on products with 100% tariff lines for all least developed countries having diplomatic relations with China, which include 33 African countries.

    Indeed, contrasts are bound to be drawn in contemporary global affairs, particularly in relation to President Donald Trump’s imprudent tariff regime and its negative disruption of global trade.

     In June this year also, China extended the zero-tariff treatment to cover 100% of tariff lines for all 53 African countries that have diplomatic ties with China.

    From January to July 2025, China’s imports from Africa’s least developed countries reached 39.66 billion USD, with a year-on-year increase of 10.2%. 

    This strikes a resonant chord in Nigeria, where the Lekki Deep Seaport stands glowingly to China’s credit. The Blue (Rail) Line built by a Chinese company provides green and convenient public mass transportation to Lagos residents. Across Africa, China’s infrastructural imprints are just as phenomenal.

    Major projects built by Chinese enterprises, such as Morocco’s Noor III and II Concentrated Solar Power Project and South Africa’s De Aar Wind Power Project, have illuminated millions of homes across Africa, helping in the path to sustainable growth and development. 

    China’s new energy vehicles are also rapidly entering the African market, offering new options to improve urban air quality.

    These are commendable. But Africa needs more if China, like a true friend of Africa that it is, genuinely wants to leapfrog the continent’s development.

    However, there are identifiable obstacles that pose serious challenges to China-Africa cooperation. These deserve to be addressed and should not be glossed over. I will now dwell on these challenges.

    Firstly, the huge debt Africa owes China is a major problem. As of 2020, Chinese lenders accounted for approximately 12% of Africa’s external debt, which has grown more than fivefold since 2000, reaching $696 billion. Between 2000 and 2023, Chinese financial institutions extended 1,306 loans, totalling $182.28 billion, to 49 African countries and seven regional organizations. Africa needs to ensure that the debt levels remain sustainable, while China also needs to consider debt restructuring or forgiveness.

    Secondly, Chinese industries in Africa must prioritize environmental and social impact assessments. China must rein in her companies to ensure they operate in ways that enhance environmental safety. Indeed, global environmental problems cannot be solved without China’s engagement. 

    Given its size, China is central to many regional and global development issues. Admittedly, China is not the main source of historical cumulative emissions. Yet, according to the World Bank, China today accounts for nearly a third of annual global carbon dioxide and 30% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions – with per capita emissions now surpassing those of the European Union, and on par with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development average. 

     Thirdly and closely related to this is the issue of local content. African countries must prioritize local content development, ensuring that projects benefit local communities. The trend, in most cases, is that Chinese companies operating in Africa come with their technology and their workforce in tow. China, as Africa’s true friend, should support and facilitate technology transfer and capacity building.

    Now, what does the future hold for China-Africa cooperation? What are the new prospects for collaboration in the next five years? 

    To strengthen collaboration, there must be enhanced dialogue between China and Africa, which will help address challenges and identify new opportunities.

    Africa and China also need to diversify cooperation areas to sectors including culture, education and tourism.

    One other important area of support from China is in the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) to enhance intra-African trade and investment. Importantly, Africa and China can collaborate on global value chains, promoting trade and investment.

    Both continents should also prioritize green and sustainable development, addressing climate change and environmental degradation.

    In conclusion, the 15th Five-Year Plan presents opportunities for Africa-China cooperation in infrastructure development, industrialization, agricultural cooperation, and technological innovation. China has demonstrated capacity in these areas.

    We actually don’t have to think long and hard to establish where this leap is apparent. Deepseek, Chinese AI models, have broken the monopoly of Western tech giants through open-source modes, initiating an “AI democratization” process. 

    The supply of China’s advanced and practical technology also helps in bridging the digital and artificial intelligence gaps, thus further empowering African industries and people, providing them transformative power to aid development.

     China parades green transition solutions, which can support a long-term future for Africa’s sustainable development. While it possesses the world’s richest green resources such as solar and wind power, Africa also remains one of the most vulnerable regions to climate change. China should actively share green transition solutions with Africa in order to truly help the continent.

    Therefore, by addressing the challenges and prioritizing mutual benefits, China and Africa can strengthen their partnership in ways that promotes technology transfer, sustainable development and shared prosperity.

     With the sufficient will, these challenges are surmountable. The prospects offer a huge cause for optimism. And the future of China-Africa relations can only blossom further.

    It may sound clichéd, but I’d like to round off this remark with that time-honoured Chinese saying, which speaks to the value of resilience as it does the China-Africa relationship: “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”. 

    May I say that President Bola Tinubu of Nigeria is prepared and ready to take that important next step in advancing the partnership between Nigeria and China based on mutual trust and shared prosperity!

    • Rahman is an aide to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu
  • FOCAC at 25: The China-Africa journey

    FOCAC at 25: The China-Africa journey

    • By Charles Onunaiju

    At the turn of the 21st century, precisely from October 10 – 12, 2000, the first ministerial conference of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) held in Beijing, following earlier consultations. Nearly 100 ministers from China and 44 African countries were in attendance. A joint declaration at the end of the conference among other things explained that the two sides were “highly appreciative of the stable development of Sino-Africa relations over the past decades, have full confidence in the future cooperation and agree that there exists a solid foundation for friendly relations and cooperation between China and Africa, given their time-honoured traditional friendship”.

    Twenty-five years later, the trajectories of China-Africa cooperation have justified the optimism expressed at the inaugural conference that the two sides “have full confidence in the future cooperation”, even as they agreed “that there exists a solid foundation”, for such cooperation, nurtured by “their time-honoured traditional friendship”.

    China-Africa cooperation even before the founding of the FOCAC process has time-honoured pedigree. From 1967, China set out to construct in Zambia and Tanzania, the nearly 2,000km railway line, offered an interest-free loan to cover costs of constructing the line and supporting infrastructure of stations and training school as well as the supply of motive power and rolling stock. The interest-free loan was repayable according to the agreement in 30 years.

    The proposal for the project, later dubbed the freedom line or Tazara railways was outrightly rejected by major Western powers then, and even the former Soviet Union as economically unviable. China accepted to build it and duly completed in 1974.

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     In 1971, 26 African countries including Nigeria were among 76 other countries in the world that voted in the UN General Assembly to enable China regain her seat at the United Nations and provided the subsisting international consensus that there is only “One China” in the world, and that Taiwan is an inalienable and integral part of China’s sovereign expression and territorial integrity.

    The vigorous exchanges and mutual support were the basis for the time-honoured traditional friendship between China and Africa and consequently formed the “solid foundation”, on which the FOCAC process was built. The point need to be made that despite the phenomenal growth in China-Africa cooperation especially at the turn of the 21st century, with the establishment of FOCAC, the relationship is neither new nor transactional as some commentators want to describe it. It is rooted in traditional friendship and solidarity shaped by common experience of colonial domination and imperialist exploitation but more importantly a shared aspiration of social and economic well beings for their respective peoples.

    In her traditional support for infrastructure construction, which began with the Tazara railway, China within the framework of the FOCAC mechanism  further energised and reinforced by the Belt and Road framework for international cooperation have helped Africa to build and renovate more than 10,000 kilometres of railways, about 100,00km of roads, more than 1,000 bridges and nearly 100 ports.

    Among the major infrastructure projects, includes the first transnational electrified railway line between Ethiopia and Djibouti, spanning over 750km and have significantly reduced both the time and cost of travel between the Ethiopia industrial heartland and the Djibouti port, the Mombassa-Nairobi standard gauge railway in Kenya, and the Lekki Deep Sea port in Lagos. The Lekki Deep Seaport with estimated economic benefits of about $360 billion would also create about 170,000 new jobs.

    These are few among the many infrastructure connectivity projects in Africa built by China in the elaborate framework of the cooperation between the two sides. The projects respond to the original deficit in the struggle for Pan African Unity, a challenge taken up at the meeting of the defunct Organization of Africa Union (OAU) at its special session at Lagos, in 1980. The vision of continental connectivity and industrial take-off contained in the iconic document, Lagos Plan of Action” was immediately countered by the World Bank and vitiated by lack of political will but has through the framework of the FOCAC process returned to the earlier blueprint with “Africa engaging more with herself through connectivity and trade than at any other time in her post-colonial history.

    Economic and Trade cooperation have emerged as the flagship of the engagement between the two sides. For 16 years in a straight row, China has been Africa’s largest trading partner with the volume reaching a record of 295.74 billion USD in 2024, an increase of 6.1% from the previous year. Since the establishment of FOCAC in 2000, the trade volume between China and African countries have risen with average annual growth of 14.2%, rising from meagre 13.94 billion US dollars  to the current record level.

    More importantly, the structure of trade which previously revolved around export of Africa energy and mineral resources and imports of China’s manufactures are shifting in favour of high value-added sectors such mechanical and electrical products, digital services and green technologies. In 2024, African countries exports of processed agricultural products to China demonstrating strength in agro-processing and manufacturing significantly increased. China’s exports to Africa which includes photovoltaic modules, industrial robots and smart phones showed remarkable boost.

    In overall, the shift in China-Africa trade towards diversification, higher value-added and technology intensive sector is becoming increasingly significant. Additionally, Chinese investments in the manufacturing, agro-processing sector energy and digital economy is scaling up Africa’s industrialization with cumulative investment that reached $42.12 billion, with nearly Chinese 3,300 operating in 51 African countries . To give greater impetus to Africa’s access to the Chinese market, the Chinese side instituted the China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo, specifically designated to give products from Africa’s exposure to China’s huge market.

    At this year’s 4th edition of the Expo, 176 contracts worth $11.39 billion were signed, a 45.8% increase to the previous edition of the Expo held in 2023. In addition to existing mechanism for concessional access of African products to the Chinese market, China proposed last June as a part of the implementation of Ten Partnership Action Plan, outlined by President Xi Jinping at the heads of State Summit of FOCAC held in 2024, to grant zero tariff treatment on 100% of tariff lines for exports from 53 African countries with diplomatic ties.

    Since the creation of FOCAC in 2000, it has propelled bilateral cooperation of the two sides into a phase of rapid, comprehensive and stable development. In addition to the creation of multiple cooperation mechanism and trade facilitation initiatives, it has enabled a long term institutional support for China-Africa relations.

    While China-Africa engagements at different levels are well known for tangible outcomes and deliverable, it is also fostering values through mutual learnings and governance experience sharing. Through the FOCAC process, inter-party consultations and civilizational dialogues are gaining momentum, and bridging the geographical gaps between the two sides.

    The China-Africa journey within the framework of the FOCAC process is still a work in progress despite the crucial milestones it has reached. At the Beijing summit of last year, President Xi Jinping proposed to characterize China-Africa as “all-weather China-Africa community with a shared future for a new era”.

    More than 60 years ago, when the Chinese Venerable Premier, Zhou Enlai visited Africa, in Ghana he outlined the eight principles of China’s support and assistance to Africa. Among the eight principles, the forth explained that “in providing aid to other countries, the purpose of the Chinese government is not to make the recipient countries dependent on China but to help them embark step by step on the road to self-reliance and independent economic development”. This position is as valid today as it was, more than six decades ago, when it was pronounced on African soil.

    The historic imperative for Africa is to meet China half way in the open brotherly embrace and make the opportunity of China to contribute to the concrete advantage of Africa’s renaissance, with FOCAC as the mutual roadmap.

    •Onunaiju is research director of Abuja based think tank.

  • FOCAC at 25: The China-Africa journey

    FOCAC at 25: The China-Africa journey

    • By Charles Onunaiju

    At the turn of the 21st century, precisely from October 10 – 12, 2000, the first ministerial conference of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) held in Beijing, following earlier consultations. Nearly 100 ministers from China and 44 African countries were in attendance. A joint declaration at the end of the conference among other things explained that the two sides were “highly appreciative of the stable development of Sino-Africa relations over the past decades, have full confidence in the future cooperation and agree that there exists a solid foundation for friendly relations and cooperation between China and Africa, given their time-honoured traditional friendship”.

    Twenty-five years later, the trajectories of China-Africa cooperation have justified the optimism expressed at the inaugural conference that the two sides “have full confidence in the future cooperation”, even as they agreed “that there exists a solid foundation”, for such cooperation, nurtured by “their time-honoured traditional friendship”.

    China-Africa cooperation even before the founding of the FOCAC process has time-honoured pedigree. From 1967, China set out to construct in Zambia and Tanzania, the nearly 2,000km railway line, offered an interest-free loan to cover costs of constructing the line and supporting infrastructure of stations and training school as well as the supply of motive power and rolling stock. The interest-free loan was repayable according to the agreement in 30 years.

    Read Also: State pardon for Herbert Macaulay, Vatsa , Ogoni leaders, Lawan, others

    The proposal for the project, later dubbed the freedom line or Tazara railways was outrightly rejected by major Western powers then, and even the former Soviet Union as economically unviable. China accepted to build it and duly completed in 1974.

     In 1971, 26 African countries including Nigeria were among 76 other countries in the world that voted in the UN General Assembly to enable China regain her seat at the United Nations and provided the subsisting international consensus that there is only “One China” in the world, and that Taiwan is an inalienable and integral part of China’s sovereign expression and territorial integrity.

    The vigorous exchanges and mutual support were the basis for the time-honoured traditional friendship between China and Africa and consequently formed the “solid foundation”, on which the FOCAC process was built. The point need to be made that despite the phenomenal growth in China-Africa cooperation especially at the turn of the 21st century, with the establishment of FOCAC, the relationship is neither new nor transactional as some commentators want to describe it. It is rooted in traditional friendship and solidarity shaped by common experience of colonial domination and imperialist exploitation but more importantly a shared aspiration of social and economic well beings for their respective peoples.

    In her traditional support for infrastructure construction, which began with the Tazara railway, China within the framework of the FOCAC mechanism  further energised and reinforced by the Belt and Road framework for international cooperation have helped Africa to build and renovate more than 10,000 kilometres of railways, about 100,00km of roads, more than 1,000 bridges and nearly 100 ports.

    Among the major infrastructure projects, includes the first transnational electrified railway line between Ethiopia and Djibouti, spanning over 750km and have significantly reduced both the time and cost of travel between the Ethiopia industrial heartland and the Djibouti port, the Mombassa-Nairobi standard gauge railway in Kenya, and the Lekki Deep Sea port in Lagos. The Lekki Deep Seaport with estimated economic benefits of about $360 billion would also create about 170,000 new jobs.

    These are few among the many infrastructure connectivity projects in Africa built by China in the elaborate framework of the cooperation between the two sides. The projects respond to the original deficit in the struggle for Pan African Unity, a challenge taken up at the meeting of the defunct Organization of Africa Union (OAU) at its special session at Lagos, in 1980. The vision of continental connectivity and industrial take-off contained in the iconic document, Lagos Plan of Action” was immediately countered by the World Bank and vitiated by lack of political will but has through the framework of the FOCAC process returned to the earlier blueprint with “Africa engaging more with herself through connectivity and trade than at any other time in her post-colonial history.

    Economic and Trade cooperation have emerged as the flagship of the engagement between the two sides. For 16 years in a straight row, China has been Africa’s largest trading partner with the volume reaching a record of 295.74 billion USD in 2024, an increase of 6.1% from the previous year. Since the establishment of FOCAC in 2000, the trade volume between China and African countries have risen with average annual growth of 14.2%, rising from meagre 13.94 billion US dollars  to the current record level.

    More importantly, the structure of trade which previously revolved around export of Africa energy and mineral resources and imports of China’s manufactures are shifting in favour of high value-added sectors such mechanical and electrical products, digital services and green technologies. In 2024, African countries exports of processed agricultural products to China demonstrating strength in agro-processing and manufacturing significantly increased. China’s exports to Africa which includes photovoltaic modules, industrial robots and smart phones showed remarkable boost.

    In overall, the shift in China-Africa trade towards diversification, higher value-added and technology intensive sector is becoming increasingly significant. Additionally, Chinese investments in the manufacturing, agro-processing sector energy and digital economy is scaling up Africa’s industrialization with cumulative investment that reached $42.12 billion, with nearly Chinese 3,300 operating in 51 African countries . To give greater impetus to Africa’s access to the Chinese market, the Chinese side instituted the China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo, specifically designated to give products from Africa’s exposure to China’s huge market.

    At this year’s 4th edition of the Expo, 176 contracts worth $11.39 billion were signed, a 45.8% increase to the previous edition of the Expo held in 2023. In addition to existing mechanism for concessional access of African products to the Chinese market, China proposed last June as a part of the implementation of Ten Partnership Action Plan, outlined by President Xi Jinping at the heads of State Summit of FOCAC held in 2024, to grant zero tariff treatment on 100% of tariff lines for exports from 53 African countries with diplomatic ties.

    Since the creation of FOCAC in 2000, it has propelled bilateral cooperation of the two sides into a phase of rapid, comprehensive and stable development. In addition to the creation of multiple cooperation mechanism and trade facilitation initiatives, it has enabled a long term institutional support for China-Africa relations.

    While China-Africa engagements at different levels are well known for tangible outcomes and deliverable, it is also fostering values through mutual learnings and governance experience sharing. Through the FOCAC process, inter-party consultations and civilizational dialogues are gaining momentum, and bridging the geographical gaps between the two sides.

    The China-Africa journey within the framework of the FOCAC process is still a work in progress despite the crucial milestones it has reached. At the Beijing summit of last year, President Xi Jinping proposed to characterize China-Africa as “all-weather China-Africa community with a shared future for a new era”.

    More than 60 years ago, when the Chinese Venerable Premier, Zhou Enlai visited Africa, in Ghana he outlined the eight principles of China’s support and assistance to Africa. Among the eight principles, the forth explained that “in providing aid to other countries, the purpose of the Chinese government is not to make the recipient countries dependent on China but to help them embark step by step on the road to self-reliance and independent economic development”. This position is as valid today as it was, more than six decades ago, when it was pronounced on African soil.

    The historic imperative for Africa is to meet China half way in the open brotherly embrace and make the opportunity of China to contribute to the concrete advantage of Africa’s renaissance, with FOCAC as the mutual roadmap.

    •Onunaiju is research director of Abuja based think tank.

  • Latest China-Africa summit

    Latest China-Africa summit

    Recently 52 or so African heads of state and government assembled as they do annually in Beijing to meet with President Xi Jinping in a one-way dialogue in which the Chinese are presented with a list of requests on developmental projects spanning civil and military spheres of life. Most of the African countries are already indebted to China and they are not really in positions of serious binary negotiations. Sometimes the African countries are just like Oliver Twist asking for more and more without understanding Chinese oriental mentality of asking for their last pint of blood from them and their children when their loans mature.

    Orientals are generally not in the habit of forgiving creditors their debts. It is not just in their character and I am afraid that Africans will in future learn to their own detriment that the Chinese like other Orientals are incredible task masters not because they are wicked but because it is in their blood. There is no free lunch anywhere in the world! Whatever loans the Chinese are giving out now will be collected with interest in future or assets will be seized when the debtors are not able to pay. The experience of Sri Lanka which took generous Chinese loans for the development and modernisation of their ports and when they could not pay, the Chinese simply seized the ports in lieu of the money owed.

    I hope the African states will open their eyes when taking Chinese loans or any loans at all because they are not grants. Many of the projects the Chinese funded like the TANZAM railways running from  Zambia to Tanzania  built  between 1970 and 1975 like the “UHURU RAILWAY “ is now not running  and is virtually out of commission and has gone into a state of almost total disrepair and is being repaired with another loan of $1 billion provided by the Chinese. In our own case in Nigeria, the Kaduna- Abuja railway has been rendered hors de combat because of terrorists attack and bureaucratic thefts and it thus cannot pay its way. The Lagos-Ibadan railway is hardly a tale of success and the Azikiwe airport to Abuja runs fitfully and not always and only God knows the fate of the Kano- Katsina- Zinder railway all built with Chinese money. The intercity railway in Lagos stands to succeed if the bureaucratic shenanigans and corruption are minimised.

    The problem of these railways is that only sections are complete. For example the Lagos-Ibadan railway is the southern portion of the line going to Kano. Without its completion, it can hardly be expected to pay its way. We also have the problem of Nigerians not willing to pay for infrastructural modernisation because they think government owes them a living! Toll roads and bridges are objects of protest and damage in Nigeria whereas in the civilised parts of the world, people are made to pay for new roads, railways and other means of modern transportation and communication. There is a need for civic education to inculcate into our people the primary responsibility of citizens to pay tax. 

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    Bill Gates on a recent visit to Nigeria pointed out that Nigerians do not pay taxes. Of course it is generally known that only salary earners pay taxes while business people hardly pay taxes no matter how wealthy they are. They simply bribe their ways through. The complaint is that taxes are routinely stolen. I am afraid we have come to a point  in our country when we have to put our feet down and say no more stealing and police the state to prevent arrant looting after all thieves are people not spirits. If we are serious we can do it. China that we run with begging hats and plates in hand to was one of the most corrupt societies in the world. China and India used to struggle with each other about which country was worse than the other until China of Mao Tsetung decided to deal brutally with any rogue pilfering from state coffers .Anyone pilfering was met by bullets. People sat up and this severe retribution continues till today. Until we do this, corruption will continue until it destroys this country. The China we all run to borrow money was within my lifetime abjectly poor until the Chinese revolution in 1949. The country continued to engage in life and death struggle with poverty until Deng XIAOPING took power and ruled the country between 1978 and 1989 and completely transformed the country from being in the backwoods of development in the world into what it is today the second most powerful country in the world, second to the United States and on the cusp of overtaking it in the next decade or two, all things being equal. The phenomenal development of China within a living memory should be what our people should try to emulate. Borrowing money and opening our markets to all kind of junks was not the Chinese way to development. The way the Chinese mobilised its huge population for development should be an example which a country like Nigeria should follow rather than importing all kinds of Chinese goods into our country. Instead of wasting our time and the little money we have on constitutional debates and writing and rewriting our constitution, we should take our ploughs, hoes and cutlasses and go to farms with the aim of not only feeding ourselves but the rest of the world as Americans do.

    I am opposed to all the presidents of Africa queuing up in foreign countries to beg for assistance when we are endowed with available land, sunshine, water, air, minerals underneath the earth, flowing water that can be harnessed for hydroelectricity. It is not just the perennial trip in Beijing that I am opposed to; I am also opposed to all African presidents going to Paris as begging children every year for France. The same goes for the similar phenomenon in London, Washington, Tokyo, New Delhi, Berlin and Madrid and who knows when even puny Lisbon will follow. These African rulers will fly in their executive jets costing millions of dollars to purchase to beg for money which is sometimes not up to the cost of their planes.  We are told that the Chinese is sharing $50 billion among the 52 African states assembled in Beijing. This means some of these presidents would go home with less than $1 billion when prorated. It just doesn’t make sense when the monarch of Britain, heads of state and government in Germany, France, Spain, and Italy rents planes from their national airlines when they want to fly and make an impression. No one can begrudge the United States, Russia and even France for using executive personalised aircraft’s for  their trips abroad, after all, they make them and can afford them without borrowing or breaking the backs of their people to buy them.

    If there is need for all African countries to meet with these powerful countries for assistance, let the AU decide that as from now onwards. African ambassadors would represent their countries in bilateral relations one-on-one and if they have to be met as a collective, there should be no problem and for the countries that have no ambassadors in these major capitals, they should be represented by neighbouring countries ’ambassadors or those of regional organisations like Economic Community of West Africa- ECOWAS or SADC or such regional bodies. This annual jamborees reminds me of what the late President George Walker Bush said about such international jamborees. He said the smaller countries speak longer than the bigger and more important participants representing important countries and that their long speeches are simply ignored. I hope this is not the case with these African jamborees simply providing comic relief for the government leaders of busy and serious countries!