Assessing the Gains and Challenges of Nigeria’s Participation in The Forum On China-Africa Cooperation(FOCAC) (Published)
The paper examined the benefit that Nigeria has gotten following her participation in the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation(FOCAC) which was established in the year 2000 in Beijing, China. FOCAC is seen as an example of the South-South Co-operation attempt to realise the dreams of the Guandung Conference held in Indonesia in 1955. The paper relied on secondary data which were sourced from textbooks, journal papers, and seminar papers among others that are related to the subject matter and adopted complex interdependence theory as a framework of analysis. Findings from this work show that Nigeria’s participation in the forum has greatly enhanced trade and increased Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) as available data shows that FDI in Nigeria has increased exponentially heating 19.27 billion US dollars in the year 2019 against 1,900 times that of 1971 when the diplomatic ties were established. FOCAC has also helped in developing Nigeria’s infrastructure like the construction of the Abuja- Kaduna railway line, among other benefits. However, findings also revealed that there are challenges in this relation, typical among them are the fear expressed by so many Nigerians of the likely hood of Nigeria falling into the Chinese debt trap, unbalanced trade which favors China, and security challenges confronting Nigeria like kidnapping, banditry, and terrorism among others. Based on this, the work recommends that China should use the platform of FOCAC to allay this fear of the debt trap and assist Nigeria in confronting these securities challenges. On the part of Nigeria, the paper recommends that Nigeria need to increase her export trade among other measures, as this will help her build a strong economy and have the resources to supply China’s growing need, rather than demand for energy resources and other raw materials.
Keywords: Africa, Assessment, China, Cooperation, forum
Context as the Principal Determinant of the Behaviour of States in Global Politics (Published)
This paper seeks to offer an explanation of the behaviour of states in global politics. It argues that a key lesson we can learn from international history is that the behaviour of states in global politics is principally determined by the context in which they behave or act; context determines whether states behave in line with the tenets of realism, liberalism, constructivism, English School, critical theories, or a combination of two or more theories. In order to concretise the discussion, the paper does a historical analysis of the international history of Africa which proves that context is the principal determinant of the behaviour of states in global politics; this is not only true of African international history, but also true of world history. Then the paper concludes that the sooner we learn this lesson, the better we will be able to create contexts that will engender desirable state behaviour!
Keywords: Africa, Context, Global Politics, International History, State, Theory
Corruption and Development Administration in Africa (Review Completed - Accepted)
Sustainable development debate provides a new look at the institutional framework for corruption dynamics in Africa .Following the introduction of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) and the Natural Resources Charter, it becomes relevant to evaluate theoretical debates on development administration and corruption interface from the institutional lens among African states, largely described as poor, rent seeking, predatory, prebendal, weak, soft, fragile, failed, vulnerable, pirate , vampire, underdeveloped etc. Whereas development failures are issues of growing scholarly concern in Africa, corruption which is conceived as diversion of public resource for private gains, becomes one central issue that requires adequate attention in the context of development discourse. This paper is framed within the context of corruption and development administration nexus using the institutional approach. It corroborates Sen’s model of “development as freedom”, and argues that development administration practice should now be guided by certain ethical guidelines defined on the basis of social justice, transparency, accountability and equality. Our findings posit that post colonial development debates should now go beyond a cursory look at development administration in the periphery societies as merely ‘comparative public administration’ rather explores how best institutional structures and actors at cross country levels could be sustainably tailored to confront contemporary development failures in Africa, influence the conduct of governance, reshape policy discourse and meet development needs. This new look seeks for alternative mechanisms for institutional overhaul of Africa’s public administration cognizant of the resurgent developmental states in East Asia where similar institutions play key developmental roles. The paper refutes existing practices in Africa where bureaucratic corruption undermines economic growth and sustainable development rather argues that development administration could be an influential apparatus for transparency, accountability and sustainable development.
Keywords: Africa, Development Administration, Developmental State, Systemic Corruption