By Dwelleth Morountodun
The Minister of Power Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola SAN, has warned African leaders to wake up
to the reality of global infrastructural challenge, warning them to be wary of what he referred to as “Foreign Investor” syndrome.
He said the relationships that characterized as “partnerships” which they are not, are driven by self-interest as in this in the case of nations, by national interest.
According to him, no foreigner is going to do Africa any favours and the current generation of Africa’s youth and leaders must quickly banish what I call the “Foreign Investor” syndrome, he reiterated, asking them to wake up and smell the coffee.
The Minister made the disclosure at the Harvard Kennedy School, Cambridge Massachusetts, U.S, acknowledged that, the subject of global partnerships for Africa’s development is a dynamic one, stressing: “we as Africans navigate our pathways to our desired future will require us first to understand how we got to where we are.
Continuing, he said: “If we subject our global relationships and affiliations, not “partnerships” to these tests of choice, consent, bargaining powers and benefits, whether it be with Europe, Asia, Middle East or America, it is hard to come to the conclusion that they properly qualified as partnerships.
“The Trans-Atlantic slave trade, the Berlin Conference, and similar incidents that brought Africa into contact with the rest of the world, fail the test of choice and consent.
“Many treaties, for trade, purchase and sale of national resources, investment in infrastructure, defence and military pacts and support will not pass the crucibles of equality of bargaining powers and mutuality of benefits.”
Nobody will help African nations fulfil their individual promises except the people of those nations by the choices they make.
We, the people of Africa must change our mindset from users to makers. we must make things that others can and want to use.
According to him, Nigeria has enough resources in copper to dominate technology, enough cassava to replace corn starch with cassava starch, enough cocoa to make our own chocolate, enough nickel iron ore to build our own steel plants and 1.2 billion people who guarantee a market for what we make and a shared prosperity for as many.
I know you have heard this before. The question is whether you believe in its possibility or not and more importantly whether you are willing to make the choice to try.
Of course the road to the prosperity will not be easy. It will be long and demanding, painful and sometimes littered with failure. But that is the story of those successful societies whose relationship with us is the subject of this discussion.
It is the story of different choices, a reform of education system, a story of replacing spiritualism with self-confidence; and a belief in the enduring and indomitable spirit and capacity of the African person.
It is a choice that will require us to own our own identities as we have seen the Chinese and Emiratis do recently.
A choice that will make us proud of our own hair and not wigs; our own accents and languages and not a foreign one and our own abilities, not borrowed ones.
The choices will make clear to us that we may have what others want, and want what others have, and we can approach them on the basis of real partnerships to use what we have to get what we want.
Today, we have a “partner” called China. They have built an economy starting from cotton, on to construction and technology. They now have needs for some of what we have. Another relationship beckons. Under its One Belt, One Road (OBOR) policy, China is offering modern infrastructure, roads, rails, power plants under an agreement of “Joint Financing”.
China offers a loan at low interest, contributes 85% of the loan, and the beneficiary contributes 15% counterpart funding and is expected to repay the full loan.
In exchange, Chinese technology and know-how is used to build the infrastructure, Chinese labour is exported to Africa, and China is also buying oil and gas assets to support her people and economy back home. The benefit is that the infrastructure is being built and it is impacting lives, but as in Politics and Economy, it has a cost.
The Chinese language is gradually penetrating Africa and so are Chinese products, phones, cutlery, televisions, clothing and anything you can think of.
Alarm bells are being rung in the West about espionage as China seeks to launch 5G technology and lead the rest of the world. (It portends extra data speed, widespread deployment of Artificial Intelligence, connectivity of hundreds of billions of devices, revolutions in healthcare and human well being and Trillions of Dollars of annual business)