Has it occurred to anybody that the Nigerian economy has been ‘chinese-sised’? The Nigerian government is hooked on the Chinese magic; individual businessmen are importing the good, the bad and the ugly into the country from China. We now eat and breathe China. Many of Nigeria’s roads are being built or repaired by Chinese construction companies; they are building airports, railways, bridges and all what not in Nigeria. People are importing all manner of wares, food items, toys ranging from reasonable to unreasonable. Even cooked foods are being imported from there! Amala, ewedu soup, egusi soup, vegetable soup and pounded yam are being ferried from China in preference to the locally prepared ones.
The tragic thing is that a lot of these things that come from there are purely fake. The electric bulbs, torches, and many other electrical appliances go dead as soon as they are plugged into a power source. They hardly last up to one week- they are Chinese technology, Chinese magic! Some time ago, the Muhammadu Buhari-led administration bamboozled Nigerians with the talk of a proposed currency swap with China. The hype was so high that some Nigerians began to wonder what the excitement was all about. It is very difficult to understand the passion for Chinese products and their technology. When the new railway project took off and Chinese firms clinched the contract, some people murmured that they hoped Nigeria would not contend with train derailments in the future.
The extraordinary interest being shown by the Nigerian government in everything Chinese is a clear indication of a visionless country that has elected to remain a slave to everything outlandish. A number of things we import from China are being made or produced here. For instance, Aba in Abia State has been in the news for many years as a hub for leather works and all manner of foot wears, but successive administrations turned a blind eye to those goods produced in the Enyimba City which in the real sense of the word are more sophisticated and durable than the ones imported from China. There has been no government support.
It is almost as if the government believes that China is the solution to every problem Nigeria has, but sad to say, no matter the many involvements of the Chinese in the Nigerian economy, Nigeria can only be built and fixed by Nigerians. The sooner this administration knows this fact the better for it because many Nigerian youths, better qualified and knowledgeable than the Chinese are unemployed. These youths are filled with anger that is boiling and if care is not taken will blow up soon in everyone’s face.
We talk about halting corruption, yet we are delving deeper into it. When we totally refuse to patronize locally made goods that even compete with the imported ones, it is corruption. China is wherever we think it is now because they insisted on patronizing their own things. They continued to repeat the same thing a number of times before they are convinced it is good. But here, no chance is given to indigenous manufacturers and fabricators. The way we are going, one day we may import Chinese government to come and take over in Abuja.
