Were I in President Tinubu's shoes, I would have used the occasion of International Women's Day to negotiate a new Belt and Road Initiative with China

Ayo Akinfe

[1] China must provide at least $10bn in capital to fund a Nigerian Women’s Cooperative Bank. It will be established to offer micro finance, student loans, start-up capital and grants to women

[2] Contrary to what a lot of Western anti-Chinese commentators say, Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is not an exploitative programme. You certainly cannot equate it with Western imperialism or European colonialism, which was just about sucking Africa dry. China should prove this by providing funding so everyone of Nigeria's local government areas can open at least one care home and refuge for single mothers and victims of domestic violence

[3] BRI did not bring with it religion. When a visitor brings their religion with them, be very wary because it tells you they are a coloniser. There is nothing wrong or exploitative about the Chinese investing in our railway network, ports, hydroelectric power sector, steel plants, etc, in exchange for raw materials like coffee, cocoa, bananas, plantain, cassava, yam, palm oil, rubber, coconuts, cashews, groundnuts, millet, sorghum, guar gum, pineapples, mangoes, papaya, pepper, macadamia nuts, kolanuts, avocado, etc. This process must be dramatically accelerated with production targets set in each sector

[4] President Tinubu should offer the Chinese cash crops like rubber, cocoa, coffee, timber, kolanuts, etc worth say $10bn a year in exchange for a corresponding amount of investment in our infrastructure

[5] Such a just, fair, unexploitative and mutually beneficial bilateral trade agreement should include a caveat that all the Chinese goods supplied for infrastructural development must be manufactured in Nigeria by local people in local factories. The days of us purchasing finished goods are long gone

[6] Nigeria and China should also sign an MoU that includes a deal that all the raw materials we export to China must have at least 50% value added to them. Adding such value will create Nigerian jobs

[7] The tropical rainforest forms the majority of the environment in certain states like Ogun, Ondo, Ekiti, Akwa Ibom, Imo, Abia, Cross River, Edo Oyo, Ebonyi and Ekiti. Chinese state-owned firms should be invited to come and open mega plantations in these states to produce as much of these tropical crops as they can in a controlled environment that does not pillage the rain forest

[8] Nigeria has about 10,000 square hectares of tropical rain forest. We are losing about 3% of this a year, so an MoU with China should ringfence our remaining rainforest, keeping it intact for the growth of tropical crops. Apart from crop production, preserving the tropical rain forest is an environmental necessity. Known as the lungs of the earth, it is the tropical rainforest that allows us to produce oxygen on our planet.

[9] China must commit to getting every single one of its automobile companies to open an electric car plant in Nigeria. This is the future and we want to be on the gravy train

[10] China has got to sign up to Nigeria's plan to account for about 5% of global manufacturing by 2035. Beijing must agree to offer training, the transfer of technology and the capital investment to facilitate this

ayoakinfe@gmail.com