10 Covid-19 recovery demands vice president Kashim Shettima should be making of the Chinese at the ongoing Road and Belt Initiative summit in Beijing

Ayo Akinfe

[1] China ‘s health product manufacturers must enter into a partnership with Innoson Motors to manufacture 50,000 ventilators a year. This is to allow Nigeria recoup some of the losses she incurred during the Coronavirus pandemic

[2] Chinese companies must enter into joint ventures with at least six Nigerian firms to produce facemasks. The target must be to produce 200m facemasks a year

[3] China must undertake to train at least 1,000 Nigerian doctors a year free of charge

[4] China’s CECC must open at least two pharmaceutical companies in Nigeria. Its goal must be to manufacture all drugs sold across Africa in Nigeria

[5] In addition, the CECC must start manufacturing Covid-19 test kits in Nigeria. We should set a target of about 10m such kits a year

[6] Given that it is China that brought this Covid-19 trouble upon us, the Chinese government must write off all Nigeria’s debts. This should be done by the end of this summit

[7] As compensation for destroying our fragile economy, China must also complete all its ongoing rail projects in Nigeria free of charge

[8] China must undertake to build an integrated electricity project in Nigeria within the next two years including a 5,000MW generating plant and a transmission and distribution network to power all these facilities

[9] China must build a 1,000-bed tropical diseases hospital in Nigeria within the next two months

[10] Given that China accounts for about 30% of global rice production with an annual output of about 212m tonnes, China must supply Nigeria with 10m tonnes of rice in the run-up to Christmas. Nigeria produces about 4m tonnes of rice annually but consumes 7m tonnes, so we desperately need stocks to avert shortages