10 demands Nigeria should be making if this visiting Chinese team given that they are the ones who started this pandemic and put us in this precarious situation

By Ayo Akinfe

(1) They must enter into a partnership with Innoson Motors to manufacture 50,000 ventilators a year. Under the terms of the deal, they must provide the capital for the reconfiguration of the plant and professional expertise

(2) They must enter into joint ventures with at least six Nigerian companies 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) The 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 trouble upon us, the Chinese government must write off all Nigeria’s debts. This should be done within the next 48 hours

(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 over the next fortnight. Nigeria produces about 4m tonnes of rice annually but consumes 7m tonnes, so we desperately need stocks to avert hunger