Tag: Nigeria-China

By Charles Onunaiju

As the eventful year 2025 draws to a close, it has delivered some vital and practical outcomes in the bilateral cooperation between Nigeria and China. A key flagship of the cooperation between the two sides especially under the iconic Belt and Road framework of International cooperation is the Lekki Deep Seaport in Lagos. Reported to be re-shaping the landscape of Nigeria’s maritime trade and re-positioning the country as regional maritime hub, the latest trade data showed that, it is the country second most crucial port by the values it delivered in trade, just three years after it began operations.

Recent figures showed the meteoric expansion. Between 1st and 3rd quarters of the year, the youngest port handled an estimated N13.46 trillion in total trade in both imports and exports, signalling a structural shift in the performance of the economy with a more balanced outlook of imports at N7.39 trillion while exports stood at N6.07 trillion. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a flagship China project of the century and the largest international public goods with more than 150 countries, regions and international organizations as partners, with Africa as the region with largest number of countries as partners of the BRI.

The first half of 2025 witnessed the highest BRI engagement ever for any six-month period with $66.2 billion in construction contracts and about $57.1 billion in investments. Nigeria’s $20 billion Ogidigbon Gas Revolution park in Delta State on the roll-out for construction underlines the practical outcomes in the Nigeria-China bilateral cooperation under the Belt and Road framework.

For an incredible year of intense joint strivings to translate many mutual understanding into practical outcomes and advance the progress made in many sectors, the meeting of President Bola Tinubu and the Chinese Ambassador Yu Dunhai earlier this month at the Presidential Villa possibly to exchange views on the rapidly evolving and bourgeoning cooperation between the two sides is a fitting tribute to a year of productive engagement.

President Tinubu’s successful state visit to China last year and his attendance of the Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) makes 2025 very pivotal in the implementation of the various understandings. In the joint statement following the successful state visit, the two sides agreed to establish “a comprehensive strategic partnership and build a high level China-Nigeria community with a shared future, pledging to consolidate mutual trust, expand cooperation and strengthen coordination. These commitments built on the reaffirmation of the two sides to firmly support each other on issues related to their respective core interests and major concerns, particularly on sovereignty and territorial integrity”, has evolved and consolidated as the bedrock of the bilateral cooperation.

Occasional distractions by the “Taipei Trade Office” in Lagos and their external cohorts have not shaken the firm root of Nigeria-China strategic partnership and the meeting of the president and the Chinese ambassador in a framework of obvious introspections on the outgoing year signalled the deep root of the relations between the two sides.

In the joint statement during President Tinubu’s visit, the Chinese side would firmly support the Renewed Hope Agenda of Nigeria and the efforts made by the country in maintaining national unity, peace and social stability as well as promoting economic development and improving people’s welfare, while the  Nigeria side would further uphold the integrity of her “One-China Policy” by firmly adhering to the One-China principle, acknowledges that there is only one China in the world, and the government of the People’s Republic of China is the sole legitimate government representing the whole of China and Taiwan is an alienable part of China’s territory.

These important reaffirmation and further commitments to deepen relations were neither subterfuge nor mere rhetoric. President Tinubu followed his successful state visit to China and his first participation at the Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) with the establishment of a special directorate in the Presidency, Nigeria-China Strategic Partnership to follow-up, outline and benchmark critical issues in the evolving trajectories of the cooperation between the two sides and deliver nimble policy approach to engaging the opportunities of the relationship.

And within the period of the new historical starting point in the relations between Nigeria and China, the 15th Chinese Ambassador to Nigeria, Yu Dunhai arrived to help in shaping and steering the pivotal moment in the two countries engagement. With both sides ready to tap into the opportunities of their mutual engagements, the outgoing year was fruitful not only in maintaining the momentum of their bilateral cooperation, but in the crucial expansions in both the opportunities and outcomes it has delivered so far.

The Chinese Ambassador, Yu Dunhai and his colleagues have significantly raised the bar in elaborating, clarifying and providing outlines to the context of the bilateral cooperation, thereby giving effect to the ever-broadening scope and the increasing depth in the two countries relations.

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The outgoing year, being the first in the three-year period of the implementation of the Ten Partnership Action Plans of the last year FOCAC Summit has been quite a defining moment for Nigeria and China. Mutual learnings and sharing of governance experiences have further been mainstreamed through the mechanism of Nigeria-China inter-governmental dialogue, where range of issues for clarification and mutual cooperation are fostered. Outside the governmental circle, China’s vigorous pubic diplomacy, encompassing cultural, think tank, media, political party dialogues have opened fresh vistas and added more impetus in developing and consolidating the strand of value exchanges and sharing between the societies of both sides.

In June, during the 4th edition of the China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo held in the Chinese Province of Hunan, dedicated exclusively to exposing Africa’s business and products to China, Beijing offered the 100% tariff free entry of nearly all products from all African countries, including Nigeria to the Chinese huge market of 1.4 billion people. The gesture at a time of heightened trade frictions and tariff walls erected primarily by Washington and subtly followed by its other Western partners could not come at a more opportune time for Nigeria and the rest of Africa.

With a longstanding concern to diversify her trade beyond the dominant crude oil and gas, the Chinese market with a concessional access for Nigeria would fill the gap in the country’s foreign exchange receipt, thereby ameliorating the challenge in the stability of the local currency. When fully tapped, access to China’s huge market have broader implications for structural shift in Nigeria’s economic outlook, in favour of increased productivity, employment and the emergence of important economic and trade corridors while evolving an economy of scale that is both integrated and resilient.

While year 2025 have consolidated the Nigeria-China bilateral cooperation as significant fabric in the outlooks of both countries, the opportunities of the future trajectories have even greater prospects. Just as anything in its form hardly translates to opportunities and advantages, except deliberately and consciously worked to yield such outcomes of mutual benefits, the future prospects especially in the coming year and beyond would depend on how the two sides further exert themselves.

More crucially, Nigeria would have to step up in engaging the opportunities especially of the concessional market access, which if properly tapped would drain the swamp of poverty across country through agricultural revitalization and boost in related non-oil exports and help to solve of the some of the issues at the root of the Nigeria’s contemporary challenges with security, stability and social inclusion.

•Onunaiju is a research director of an Abuja-based think tank.

• By Charles Onunaiju

Last July, at the 17th BRICS Leaders’ Summit in Brazil, with the theme of “Strengthening Global South Cooperation and Promoting a more Inclusive and Sustainable Global Governance”, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu called for “a financial restructuring and a re-evaluation of the global social and governance order”, and added that “Nigeria re-affirms its commitment to strategic collaboration that translates into sustainable and inclusive development for all”.

Now, an important opportunity and strategic platform has offered itself for Nigeria to translate her resolve and “commitment to strategic collaboration” into practical action that would give effect to “sustainable and inclusive development”.

At the recent summit of the 25th Heads of States Council of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) held in the Chinese city of Tianjin, Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed the Global Governance Initiative (GGI), and expressed China’s resolve to “work with all countries for a more just and equitable global governance system and advance toward a community with a shared future for humanity”. He went further to outline the essential and basic features of the proposed Global Governance Initiative to include first and foremost, sovereign equality, which recognizes the equal weight and stake of all states in the international system which must translate to inclusive decision-making and equitable participation of all state actors thereby giving effect to the democratisation of the international system.

Additionally, the initiative holds that the representation and voice of the developing countries should be further enhanced and this clearly aligns with Nigeria’s and Africa’s long standing demands for the reform of key international institutions to reflect the realities and especially, the coming into reckoning of Africa and other countries in the Global South to the emerging multi-polar international order.

The Global Governance Initiative (GGI) also calls for unconditional adherence to the United Nations system as the embodiment of universally recognized expression of the law and rule-based system of international intercourse, while cautioning that “the house rules of a few countries must not be imposed on others”.

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The Global Governance Initiative (GGI) further emphasize multilateralism which shall be entrenched in the architecture of global governance system that would be characterized by “extensive consultations and joint contribution for shared benefit”, and further reaffirmed the centrality of the United Nations, whose authority and key role is irreplaceable in global governance. The proposed framework for global governance underscored the fact that the initiative would not be just about the “games nations play”, but should be one that “ensures that the people of every nation are the actors in and beneficiaries of global governance, so as to better tackle the common challenges of mankind. Only the People-centred approach to global governance can guarantee and deliver tangible results.

 The fifth leg of the proposed Initiative would focus on “taking real actions” that produce tangible results.

Traditional international forums are usually characterized as platforms for grandstanding and diplomatic circus- show where actors say what they did not mean and with little effects on delivering tangible outcomes. Nigeria and Africa have been on the receiving end of international grandstanding and highfalutin Western proposals that deliver little or nothing in practice.

For example, in 2013, U.S President Barack Obama launched Power Africa Initiative, meant to double access to electricity in Sub-Saharan Africa where estimated 600 million people lack access then. This year, (2025) the U.S government shut down the Power Africa Initiative for persistent failure to meet targets and lack of significant progress. A report in 2019 revealed that Power Africa Initiative overstated its achievements, with many projects and energy deals, never materializing and most of modest new connections then, coming from mere hand-held solar lanterns. Even, the U.S -led Build Back Better (B3W) world, a project to supposedly address and support global infrastructure deficit and rival China’s Belt and Road Initiative, fell apart before its one year anniversary for zero funding outlay.

in the proposed initiative on global governance, actions will speak louder than words. The Chinese leader said that “the Global Governance Initiative would adopt a systematic and holistic approach, coordinate global actions, fully mobilize various resources” to strive and bring about more visible and practical outcomes. The new map of global governance envisaged by the initiative, would uphold the original commitment to peaceful co-existence, build and strengthen confidence in win-win cooperation and more crucially, advance forward, in line with the trend of history and also thrive, as it keeps pace with the times.

Nigeria-China comprehensive strategic partnership declared by the two sides during President Tinubu’s state visit to China last year would now more effectively function as an important platform to advance their shared vision of global governance reforms, whose important features have been meticulously articulated in the Global Governance Initiative (GGI).

As it is remarkably well known, China’s Initiatives are not empty talks or political grandstanding because they are issued from an in-depth and rigorous study of the subjects in question, in all their historical dimensions and reflect the trends that shape contemporary human prospects and outlook. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), an outstanding international public goods for which over 150 countries are currently in partnership, with more than a decade of seamless operation and China’s investment of more than $1 trillion exemplifies the successful practice of “extensive consultations and joint contributions for shared benefits”.

Nigeria and China have elaborate consultative mechanism through the institutionalized process of inter-governmental dialogue, which have enriched bilateral cooperation between the two sides and enabled misconceptions of understanding and challenges in cooperation to be solved through more cooperation and not less. In the specific instance of the proposed GGI, the mechanism for extensive bilateral cooperation between the two sides can be used to mutually enrich the vision of global governance reforms and methodically advance it on the global platform because it reflects the shared concerns of both sides.

The initiative resonates with Africa’s historical calls for equitable and inclusive international system that is both non-discriminatory and fully democratic. It also reflects, Africa’s concerns that the international governance system should solve real problems, and produce practical outcomes, as a meaningful response to the many challenges confronting humanity. There is a common understanding that humankind is becoming a community of shared future and the corollary to this understanding is that a global governance mechanism that would adequately respond to these challenges must be inclusive and broadly participatory and the initiative on global governance provides an outline for such important undertakings.

The vision of the common humanity can be more practically realized within the framework of a global governance apparatus that reflect both the general and common will of all the peoples, whose most extant institutional representation is currently the United Nations system.

The Global Governance Initiative has come at a very opportune time when humanity is at a crossroad and the choice it has to make is both grim and optimistic and a buff of fresh air has just emerged to compel humanity in the direction to work not only for self-preservation but collective security with the obvious dividends of universal peace and shared prosperity.

•Onunaiju is research director of Abuja based think tank