By Chukwuma Okoro.
The four-day visit of President Muhammadu Buhari to the United States of America (USA) which ended last Wednesday changed perceptions generally and brought hope based on trust to the Nigerian people. It was like a rapprochement to some people and to some a breakthrough.
The visit coming few weeks after attending the G7 meeting in Germany is a clear indication that the whole world is beginning to take Nigeria seriously. In the course of the visit, several State level meetings were held between President Buhari including meetings with non-governmental organisations signaling America’s deep-seated interest in Nigeria which has interestingly been acknowledged as the biggest economy in Africa.
Prior to the President’s visit, there were widespread speculations that America would use the opportunity of the visit to force President Buhari to rescind the Anti-Gay Marriage Act that was signed into law by the previous administration, prompting many Nigerians and Civil Society organisation to openly call on the President not to bow to pressure from the United States and President Obama if the issue was put on the table. Graciously no serious mention of the Gay marriage was mentioned throughout the entire visit except when he addressed the US Congress which President Buhari stoutly defended.
Rather than the Anti-Gay marriage law, discussions centered on how America can assist Nigeria develop its economy and fight insurgency that has ravaged the North Eastern part of Nigeria for over five years. The new rapprochement between both countries which many Nigerians welcome can be traced back to the pre-2015 general elections in Nigeria when America put more than a casual interest in the process and eventual outcome of the elections. American Secretary of State John Kerry visited Ni geria on two occasions in the course of the preparations for the elections and during the Presidential inauguration and held meetings with the two top contestants; former President Goodluck Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari who ran as an opposition candidate. When the elections were postponed, Kerry on behalf of the United States warned of dire consequences if the elections were further postponed against the wishes of the Nigerian people. Such statements signaled the importance America places on Nigeria and this was reinforced during President Buhari’s visit when John Kerry while addressing a joint press conference with President Buhari said that “Nigeria is an extraordinarily important country to the United States of America”.
President Buhari while in the United States sought the assistance of the US government and its people to help build the Nigerian economy and fight insurgency in Nigeria. He called on American entrepreneurs to take advantage of the liberal trade and investment climate in Nigeria to invest massively in Nigeria and do profitable business. He pledged to continue with the privatization programme that is already in place promising to expand it to include other sectors such as the aviation, telecommunication, energy, gas, solid minerals, health, and infrastructure development sectors in the privatization process.
President Buhari came back with a basket full of promises from America. The United States government has agreed to collaborate with the Nigerian government to fight and decisively defeat the Boko Haram insurgents who recently pledged their affiliation and allegiance to the notorious terror group ISIS. This allegiance has certainly unsettled America because any effort by ISIS/Boko Haram to push fundamentalism and extremism down South of Nigeria would amount to a clear and present danger to both Abuja and Washington.
Before the President left the United States, the World Bank pledged to give a loan of $2.1b for rebuilding of North East Nigeria that has keenly felt the full impact of the insurgency with millions of people forced into neighbouring Cameroun and Niger republics as refugees while countless others remain within Nigeria as Internally Displaced Persons. Analysts have questioned the rationale behind embarking on reconstruction of the North East when the activities of the insurgents rather than abate have actually taken a turn for the worse. Reconstruction, rehabilitation and reintegration are essentially post-conflict activities and cannot take place when enemy fires are still common in affected areas.
In addition to the World Bank loan and the United States promise to assist Nigeria in combating terrorism Mr. Paul Hikns, Chairman of the Corporate Council on Africa, expressed the readiness of American investors to do business with the new government in Nigeria. Mr. Hinks equally used the opportunity to extend an invitation to President Buhari to chair the council’s Summit scheduled to hold in Ethiopia in November; a clear indication of the respect the Council has for person of President Buhari.
In all of this new found love, it is curious that for the fourth time Nigeria was left out in the itinerary of President Obama’s last official visit to the African continent. In a manner of speaking, it also goes to show the level of importance and respect US accords Nigeria. Analysts are quick to point out that the itinerary was planned well in advance of the 2015 Nigerian general elections and given the precarious relationship between the two countries at that time it would not have been feasible to include Nigeria in President Obama’s visit to Africa. They point to issues of corruption in Nigeria and the government’s alleged complicity and lack of political will to fight corruption citing the State pardon granted former Governor of Bayelsa State Mr. Solomon Depriye Alamiesiagha as one of the many instances of unchecked corrupt practices. These are some of the issues that distanced President Jonathan and Nigeria from America and almost returned Nigeria to its pariah status during the dark days of military regime. The issue of human rights abuses leveled against the Nigerian military was also cited as another factor that may have denied Nigeria the opportunity of hosting President Obama.
President Obama personally made allusion to issues of corruption while welcoming President Buhari to the White House. “President Buhari comes into office with a reputation for integrity and a very clear agenda and that is to make sure that he is bringing safety and security and peace to his country,” Obama said. He added that Buhari has a “very clear agenda” to fight both Boko Haram and corruption and pledged U.S. cooperation on both fronts.
In spite of all the goodwill that this visit will bring to Nigeria, some Nigerians are also skeptical that US has only developed more than the casual interest in Nigeria because of what it stands to gain from Nigeria. They point to the large market which Nigeria offers to US and the opportunities in oil and gas. Nigeria with its size, population and influence is a direct route to the West African market which is gradually returning to peace and stability after the turmoil and internal strife that ravaged some of its countries between 1990 and 2010. A stable Nigeria will necessarily create a stable West Africa, thus the extraordinary interest US has developed in Nigeria.
Beyond the economic opportunities that US sees in Nigeria, China’s incursion into Nigeria and indeed Africa has also more than doubled US attention and interest in Nigeria. With the Chinese companies bidding and winning infrastructure and oil and gas contracts running into billions of dollars in Africa, America can no longer pretend and look the other way while China woos and in fact marries the ever young bride that is Africa. Indeed a new scramble for Africa between the two World powers if not a present reality is already in the offing. How Nigeria and other African countries react to and engage with these powers will determine to a great extent the future of growth and development in Africa.
President Buhari while in the United States emphatically pointed out that Nigeria has huge economic potential that required huge funding that cannot be sourced locally. He therefore called on the United States foreign investment and funding agencies such as Overseas Investment Corporation and the United States Export–Import Bank to increase access to capital and funding of such businesses on favourable terms. .
On the request for assistance to fight Boko Haram, analysts wonder why Nigeria despite huge investments made in military and defence cannot defeat a rag tag army of insurgents who have made deep incursions into Nigeria including carving out territories for themselves within the Nigerian State. For instance, it is baffling that after about 55 years of independence with millions of dollars marked out for the Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria, DICON for the manufacture of arms and ammunition for the military, Nigeria still buys arms from overseas. DICON was established in1964 alongside Defence corporations in Brazil with some of them privately owned. Specifically Embraer Brazil was established in1969 and its gross revenue from sale of military aerospace and defense hardware amounted to $5.7b in 2013 alone. Success stories from other countries that started with Nigeria on the same pedestal are both startling and shaming at the same time. Calling on America to help provide intelligence support for the defeat of Boko Haram sounds more like outsourcing Nigerian intelligence to the United States according to analysts.
Regarding the $2.1b loan that has been pledged for the rebuilding of North East, experts want to see Nigerian companies and professionals fully involved in the reconstruction process as they are very many qualified Nigerians and indigenous companies that have the capacity to deliver on quality jobs. They warn sternly that cases in the past where foreign experts are flown in on first class tickets and given bogus and inordinately high salaries and allowances for jobs locals can do will not help the Nigerian economy.
It is against this backdrop that African political economists and analysts frown at aids for African countries. Africa they contend needs trade and not aids. Since African countries do not export finished products to America and Europe but only devalued raw materials which are refined and exported back to Africa, it behooves on African leaders to encourage intra and inter regional African trade relations with emphasis and concentration on areas of comparative advantage. Through this way Africa’s commodities that end up outside Africa will definitely receive appropriate pricing and in the process put back most of Africa’s ailing economies to the path of growth.
President Buhari admitted this much when he said that fixing Nigeria’s problem as formidable as they are was the responsibility of Nigerians. “The international community can only assist, but the hard work belongs to Nigerians and their government” Buhari said.
Nigeria’s economic salvation lies in cooperation with Africa first before the rest of the world. The African market is huge for Nigeria and efforts should be geared in that direction rather than seeking to deepen unbeneficial relations that have existed for over 50 years.
At this point what the government should do is to create an enabling environment for massive indigenous industrialization that will flood the African market with high quality Nigerian products. Recreating the industrial estates of the early independence days will do a better magic than looking up to the West that has never really helped. Going cap in hand to America to beg for assistance to develop our economy and fight insurgency has and may never yield meaningful results.
In the light of all these, while Nigerians welcome the new engagement in the Nigeria-US bilateral relations which has received a new impetus with the recent visit of President Buhari to the United States of America they also caution that Nigeria should not go to sleep and wait for US to sort our entire problems for us. It is only Nigerians that can make Nigeria better.
