By Bashir Adefaka
“Rather than being ungrateful to China because of what some people term maltreatment, we should shun the Trump’s sponsored propaganda, appreciate Beijing and its developmental gestures towards Nigeria in our quest to grow as an emerging world standard economy. It should concern us that since we have had with America the type of alliance we now have with China, what have we gained other than promotion of sponsored religious, ethnic, political chaos and insecurity as a result of terrorism whose sponsors are not farfetched today?”
With the look of things, United States of America will eventually get over its crisis as now country with highest number of confirmed Coronavirus cases and deaths but no longer as the super country it used to be. This is because new world order, no doubt, has handed the mantle of world leadership over to the Peoples Republic of China, being that the world has already dethroned America from the status of the most powerful nation and biggest economy.
Sad to know that it was this reality of avoidable collapse America should have considered that President Donald Trump did not want to see coming to pass, which led him to the attempted Twist of Fate that today has brought world the to this standstill. The billionaire entertainer turned politician surely forgot that United States was not the first, not second, not even the third country to be super power that the world has witnessed in history and, the last time we checked, it is not going to be the last super country of the world. If truly America’s is God’s Own Country, neither should it bother Trump nor should any of his believers, particularly those few self-based “grant” beneficiaries currently holding brief for him as he extends his propaganda against China to Nigeria, feel bad that power will now shift.
So, it only amounts to struggling power with fate determined only by the Lord of the world for America to have embarked on what it started with China the moment it dawned on it, particularly under Trump, that the country ruled from Beijing would in matter of days emerge (if it has not already emerged) as world’s most powerful country, pushing it to the background. That is where Trump and those Nigerians who have joined him in his anti-China propaganda missed it.
What God says will be will surely be. If Egypt under Pharaoh fell and the ungrateful King was given dishonourable treatment to death as he was destroyed amidst the Red Sea by the power of God that made emergence of Egypt possible and him as king, how much more United States of America, which history of how it emerged is not unknown to students of recent history? Why then engage in this unfortunate, dangerous propaganda, trying to paint China as bad and evil in the eyes of the world so that its destined emergence as next world leader would be impossible? And where do Nigerians who are helping him in this dishonourable act get their inspiration to do so and of what benefit is it to their home country Nigeria, if not for personal aggrandizement?
All of a sudden, after the 5G/coronavirus propaganda failed, some kind of apprehension arose in Nigeria about so called maltreatment of Nigerians in China. From my assessment of the video that is being circulated which many that have spoken about, I am yet to see what those peddling the rumour of maltreatment are talking about. Some of our Nigerian people have an attitude, if care is not taken, President Muhammadu Buhari would have been set against other countries of the world including Ghana and South Africa. When you scream about anything done to you, you do not talk about what you did wrongly, but want the world to see the smoke that is coiling out around you and forget about the fire that cause it, which is your own misbehaviour. It is unfair. As for the video, I expect anybody talking now to first exercise caution and let investigation conclude first. We all knew what eventually caused the xenophobia in South Africa and the screamed maltreatment in Ghana. Why those that wanted us to go to war with Johannesburg and Accra up till today have not come back to tell us “we are sorry” remains a thing of sorry for me.
From the photographs and video of meeting of the Nigeria’s Foreign Affairs Minister Godfrey Onyeama with the Chinese Ambassador to the country, Pingjian, the Chinese envoy was seeing the video for the first time. If I have seen videos in Nigeria of how Fake News elements made their Inspector General of Police (Ibrahim Idris) look like dunce battling with English speaking, if I have seen video in this country of how President Buhari, not only is not the man we have presently in Aso Rock but also sick in hospital bed and died, which is all false information by some known persons among whom is a former minister in this country, how he was erroneously presented as being booed by Borno State people and many other mischievously doctored videos, how, honestly speaking, would anybody want me to believe a video by a Nigerian where only him was talking and the other person (Chinese) he was talking to never uttered a word? Was that person a dumb that he could not talk? If no, then before people like Femi Gbajabiamila acted on such video, courtesy demands to know what the response of the Chinese man we saw in that video was. After all, there was nothing in the video that showed that the man talking was manhandled, maltreated, slapped or something.
We were also told that Chinese landlords were ejecting Nigerians from their homes. If we did not call for the head of President Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa in Johannesburg where we had confirmed xenophobia against Nigerians and we did not demand for death sentence on President Nana Akufo-Addo in Accra, when Nigerian traders were being allegedly overtaxed and even subjected to hard life in Ghana, how come we quickly jumped to conclusion over China, a country that we know its attitude towards its own law? Unfortunately, most of the people that are against China being patronized or being in alliance with Nigeria, taking side with Trump, are people who are against the sitting government in the country and who have used Fake News and dangerous rumours to attack the integrity of the Buhari’s government so that in the eyes of the public and the world, it will be seen as evil. It is not sad but pitiful.
Does anybody have capacity to block the day from breaking? Is there anyone that has the power to stop sun from rising or day from sleeping into the night? If no, then, those who are doing this evil propaganda must stop it because the repercussion will be disastrous and only the owners of the disaster will carry it.
Rather than being ungrateful to China because of what some people term maltreatment, we should shun the Trump’s sponsored propaganda, appreciate Beijing and its developmental gestures towards Nigeria in our quest to grow as an emerging world standard economy. It should concern us that since we have had with America the type of alliance we now have with China, what have we gained other than promotion of sponsored religious, ethnic, political chaos and insecurity as a result of terrorism whose sponsors are not farfetched today? And if government wants to rise against those anti-national interest behaviour, you have an America who came to say “you are a dictator”, “you tolerate the killing of Christians”, “you gag the press and deprive media practitioners from operating freely”, “you are worst nation in human rights implementation” and so on and so forth.
This is the basic reason Nigeria has refused to develop because those corrupt elements who steal the wealth that should have been used to build the country have the backing of America to perpetrate their acts. It is the reason you also see lawyers being bold to come to court and tell why an Evans the billionaire kidnapper has the right to go home free without being prosecuted. It is the reason people who bomb our pipeline in the Niger Delta have defenders within and the next is for America to create an avenue for them to glow. I do not need to start saying all again what contributions Trump made to our national elections of 2019 which nearly ran Nigeria aground whereas he does not even have respect for democracy in his own country that is “God’s own country”.
One is then forced to ask: all the monies that are being siphoned by corruption and carted abroad, is there any of them that was taken to bank in China? No. All of them have banks in America that kept the looted monies for the rogue Nigerians. Surprisingly, Trump would turn round and help one of them that his country had already banned from getting entry visa (to enter) for the singular reason of his corruption crime in America. He even used his hotel in Washington and New York simply because he needed to join the Nigerian opposition leaders to, at all cost, remove Muhammadu Buhari since it had been difficult by military coup they once tried to incite. Thanks to Lt. General Tukur Yusuf Buratai, the Nigeria’s Chief of Army Staff for allowing God to use his Army to strengthen the government against the antics of the mischief makers.
But within the short time we have been with China, our railways project is fast moving and growing. Even in moments to come, Nigerian importers of technology based products will now buy directly from China using Yuan and not any longer dollar with a view to crashing the unnecessary hike, instability of price regime on imported such items. By that when Yuan exchanges for N54 against dollar exchange of N360 or N420, telephone set of N50,000 can sell for as low as N15,000. China is not asking us for anything. It believes that it helps Nigeria and Nigeria helps it. Our road projects are now progressing and everything about development we have started with China which was not possible with our alliance with America.
Security wise, how many countries have China used terrorists to destroy to our knowledge? Of recent, we know how America was behind the Islamic State (ISIS) that ravaged Syria for seven years now, whereas it tells the other side of the world it has zero tolerance for terrorism. How can you support ISIS in Syria but pretend to be fighting it in Afghanistan or other country it operates? You hate its allies (Boko Haram) in Nigeria (which is great) but when you would conclude, you will even agree with the junks that Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and opposition group tell you to say that those killed by Boko Haram in Nigeria are Christians and that the government of the day is backing the killings?
All of these must stop. Since Nigeria, like any other country of the world, cannot afford to isolate itself from the rest of the world, we, as citizens will continue to stand with the government of the day to get the best out of the new alliance with China, regardless of what any propagandists would say or do. Before this piece ends, anyway, the Tucano planes that we paid for to fight terrorism in Nigeria, which Trump promised to deliver in year 2020 must be delivered now.
*WAKE UP is opinion column of Prince Bashir Adefaka, a Lagos based media practitioner. Reach him via omope72@gmail.com and 08163323906.
