BRI helps Africa build infrastructure, create much-needed jobs: Nigerian FM

Nigeria’s Foreign Minister Yusuf Maitama Tuggar. (Photo: Yin Yeping/GT)

China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) builds roads, provides electricity, and creates much-needed jobs for Nigeria, the country’s Foreign Minister Yusuf Maitama Tuggar said in a recent exclusive interview with the Global Times during the Summer Davos in Dalian, Northeast China’s Liaoning Province.

Tuggar refuted Western media narrative of BRI causing “debt trap” in developed countries, and China’s attempt to influence Africa through BRI, calling it “an insult” to African countries. He noted the positive impact of BRI on Nigeria and expressed his expectations for deeper ties with China.

There are quite a few BRI projects underway in Nigeria, which help build roads, bridges, and power generators in his country, Tuggar said.

And, infrastructure projects have created many jobs for Nigeria, a country with a huge population, he said.

Nigeria has the largest population in Africa. Nigeria has 223.8 million people, according to Statista.

“By 2050, we’re going to have 400 million people, so we’re in a race against time to create jobs,” Tuggar said.

“Infrastructure helps to take people out of poverty, which is also what we want to do. That’s why BRI is very important to us. We want to make sure it is done in a sustainable manner,” said the foreign minister.

Nigeria has achieved strong economic development driven by BRI projects, especially in railways and telecommunication sectors such as optical fibers, according to media reports.

Talking about the changes that Chinese projects have brought to the African country, the minister said they have been “immense,” giving the example of the Chinese-built Lekki Deep Sea Port, the first of its kind in Nigeria. The multi-purpose deep sea port began commercial operations in April 2023, with a design capacity for handling 1.2 million standard containers annually.

However, some Western media and politicians have kept hyping the “debt trap” narrative, with some claiming that China is using BRI to influence African countries. In a response, Tuggar said that it is “an insult to African countries.”

“It implies that an African country doesn’t know what is good for them,” he said, noting that “nobody is going to pull wool over our eyes. We know exactly what we’re doing.”

Development is a matter of life and death as people need electricity, roads, and sustainable development such as green transformation, the foreign minister said, adding that these things cannot be done without building infrastructure.

Tuggar said: “If we borrow (money and expertise) to bring benefits to people to improve their standards of living, there’s nothing wrong with that. Actually, every country is doing that (borrowing money for development) and there is no country that does not have debt.”

“What we need is development and not to keep on saying we’re not going to invest because there’s a risk. This so-called risk is exaggerated,” Tuggar said.

The Nigerian foreign minister expressed his expectations of deepening relations with China. In addition to traditional fields such as infrastructure, Nigeria also wants to expand cooperation in other areas such as electric vehicles (EV), in which China has the competitive advantage.

“We see Chinese companies investing in lithium processing in our country, which is exactly what we need – we want to create an entire supply chain ranging from mining to processing to final EV plants,” Tuggar said, adding that “Nigeria sets no limit in its cooperation with China.”

Tuggar also responded to intensified protectionism by some Western countries targeting China, saying that “globalization has already happened, reversing the trend is not going to work.”

“We’re never in favor of protectionism. We’re moving from a bipolar to a multipolar world and we should come to terms with that,” he said.

(Web editor: Tian Yi, Wu Chaolan)