African nations have to give the UN an ultimatum to make FDI compulsory and make the refusal to invest a crime against humanity

By Ayo Akinfe

(1) While world leaders were hanging out in New York, China just opened the world’s biggest airport in Beijing. This huge Beijing Daxing airport that spans 1m square metres costs £13.5bn and was constructed south of Beijing in just five years

(2) Shaped like a starfish, the new Daxing International Airport has been designed to handle up to 72m passengers a year. British Airways has already announced that it will move all of its daily Beijing flights to the new airport in October

(3) A new high-speed railway service was constructed to serve the airport and will carry passengers at a speed of 250kmh (155mph) to the centre of Beijing 45 miles away

(4) While this was going on, US aerospace start-up Hermeus Corporation, said it has obtained finance from seed funders and private investors to develop a plane that will travel at five times the speed of sound, transporting passengers between New York and London in 90 minutes or less

(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 is particular is setting new boundaries on a daily basis with bigger, faster, taller, etc everything. Dubai in particular 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 development 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) Unfortunately, President Buhari did not make that case at the UN as it appears that he does not grasp the seriousness of the issue at hand. Africa needs FDI urgently or poverty, religious extremism and ignorance will continue to grow across the continent