I am waiting to see what President Tinubu gets out of this COP28 Climate Summit in Dubai but for me, what he needs to ask for is fixed foreign direct investment rates

By Ayo Akinfe

[1] World leaders are busy trying to find ways to reduce our carbon footprint at this summit in Dubai. One thing they fail to ever mention, however, is that Africa has very little to do with global warming

[2] As a continent, our carbon emissions are minuscule because we simply do not manufacture enough to pollute the environment. When you account for just 1% of global manufacturing, you really have no environmental case to answer

[3] In the case of Nigeria, our only two big environmental crimes are gas flaring in the Niger Delta and the endless use of generators to provide electricity. They, however, still do not amount to much

[4] I hope President Tinubu is making a case for Africa at this summit. He should be telling everyone that the world owes Africa one and for, me, what he should be demanding is foreign direct investment (FDI) as a way of making it up to us

[5] I want to ask all of you how come Africa has a gross domestic product (GDP) of $2.19trn, while China has a GDP of $12.24trn. They both have identical populations of about 1.3bn people. Unfortunately, the United Nations (UN) does not see anything immoral about this. The European Union has a GDP of $18.8trn and a population of about 500,000m people. What kind of macabre inequality is this?

[6] China in particular is setting new boundaries on a daily basis with bigger, faster, taller, etc everything. Dubai is trying to follow suit

[7] When I look at the thousands of Nigerians who shamelessly troop to Dubai annually to throw flamboyant and expensive parties, I ask myself how come they are not embarrassed about the fact that their nation is not part of this developmental drive. How come the “See wetin your mate dey do” argument does not apply here?

[8] If all the money Nigerians invest in Dubai jamborees was invested in Nigeria, it would have had a significant impact on the economy by now

[9] As things stand, the rest of the world is accelerating ahead and leaving Africa behind. It is up to the United Nations to address this anomaly. We need an article passed by the UN Security Council compelling all industrialised nations to invest 5% of their GDP in Africa. Failure to do so should be classified as a crime against humanity. Failing to eradicate poverty is a worse crime than using chemical weapons in my opinion

[10] Africa needs FDI urgently or poverty, religious extremism and ignorance will continue to grow across the continent. I hope President Tinubu succeeds in convincing the rest of the world of this at the Dubai summit