Also published in Daily Trust
By the way, though the majority of Arabs are geographically Africans, they hardly identify themselves as Africans. Instead, when they refer to Africa they don’t necessarily mean the whole of Africa as a continent; instead they mostly mean the non-Arab African countries.
Anyway, being the second largest economy in Africa with also the largest consumer market in the continent (though unfortunately with virtually nothing to show for it), Nigeria, was obviously one of the most important participants in the summit. Its delegation was led by Vice President Muhammad Namadi Sambo.
Now that the summit is over, and as in all similar summits involving Africa and other continents, continental blocks or countries, it remains to be seen if it would actually benefit the Africans as it has always benefitted the other parties. After all, African countries have for long been lured, either individually or collectively, into such deals only to end up being economically exploited, in reality.
For instance, ever since the end of European colonization of Africa, which was also supposed to have ended the era of massive looting of African natural resources and the enslavement of its people by the Europeans, the practice has persisted anyway, though not in the same crude manner but largely through some so-called long-term economic cooperation deals, which gave such former colonial powers unhindered access to Africa’s vast natural resources and enormous consumer market.
With the active collaboration of Africa’s corrupt and irresponsible leaders, who such former colonial powers and other western and Asian countries continue to induce with kickbacks and other forms of corruption, and consequently manipulate them, Africa’s natural resources and vast consumer market continue to form the bases of economic growth for such former colonial powers at the expense of the continent’s strategic economic interests.
Unfortunately, whenever a country conceives strategic economic policies to achieve accelerated and sustainable economic growth, it finds no better place to get the “best” deals in terms of acquiring the necessary raw materials, natural resources and market share for its finished products and services, than Africa. It is in reality the steppingstone on which every country steps to escape poverty, while it ironically houses the poorest people on earth.
For instance, over the past two decades, China and India have achieved immense economic development thanks to their long-term economic engagement with Africa. As a matter of fact, they have become particularly notorious for arranging questionable deals with African leaders in much more flagrant manners compared with their western counterparts, who act rather cautiously to dodge their relatively stricter laws.
Therefore, Arabs also seem to have realized the imperative of a renewed engagement with countries they may likely exploit economically. Predictably also, and as their western and Asian counterparts have done, Arabs head for Africa where rulers are unfortunately prepared to jeopardize the strategic economic interest of their respective countries for personal gains.
Despite being also rich in natural resources especially oil, Arab countries have important economic interests to pursue in Africa. However, just like other so-called partners for economic development, they also take advantage of Africa’s massive consumer market on one hand and the inadequacy of its manufacturing base on the other, to re-export their imported and assembled goods to Africa, and also provide different services, which only require basic infrastructural facilities and relatively little financial commitment to make extremely huge profits.
While on the other hand, there is hardly any African investment of great significance in any Arab any country, even though according to the agreements that enable firms from Arab countries to operate in Africa, African firms can equally operate in the Arab countries. Nevertheless, even if they attempt to avail of such enabling provisions they would simply be frustrated on the bases of some largely silly technicalities.
For instance, some years back, the Kano-based Kabo Air introduced regular flights on Kano-Cairo route, which has for long been monopolized by Egypt Air, in addition to its several other flights from both Lagos and Abuja airports. Yet the Egyptian authorities reportedly stopped Kabo Air under the pretext that, the air services agreement between Nigeria and Egypt allows only Nigerian government-owned airline to operate on the route.
There are many other instances of investment and trade imbalance between Africa, and Nigeria in particular, and Arab countries, which must be addressed for Nigerians to benefit from such partnership deals. I would want see Dantata & Sawoe for instance operating in Egypt as the Egypt-based Arab Contractors operates in Nigeria. Likewise, I would want to see Glo operating in the United Arab Emirates just as Etisalat operates in Nigeria.
It is obvious that, unless African partners agree to equally open up their markets for African products and services, such summits would always be of little or no benefit to ordinary Africans, if not counterproductive for that matter. In any case however, African leaders are largely to blame for this situation, because if they had lived up to their responsibilities, Africa would not have remained a mere consumer market where almost everything of reasonable quality from textile to toothpicks has to be imported from outside the continent.
Vice
President Muhammad Namadi Sambo and the Kuwaiti officials
Leaders and representatives of
Arab and African countries recently held a two-day summit in the oil-rich
Kuwait. It was the third of its kind since 1977 when it was first held in
Cairo, Egypt. The second summit was held in 2010 in Libya. Like the previous
summits, the recently concluded summit was, according its organizers, intended
to discuss partnership between African countries and their Arab counterparts
for economic development.
By the way, though the majority of Arabs are geographically Africans, they hardly identify themselves as Africans. Instead, when they refer to Africa they don’t necessarily mean the whole of Africa as a continent; instead they mostly mean the non-Arab African countries.
Anyway, being the second largest economy in Africa with also the largest consumer market in the continent (though unfortunately with virtually nothing to show for it), Nigeria, was obviously one of the most important participants in the summit. Its delegation was led by Vice President Muhammad Namadi Sambo.
Now that the summit is over, and as in all similar summits involving Africa and other continents, continental blocks or countries, it remains to be seen if it would actually benefit the Africans as it has always benefitted the other parties. After all, African countries have for long been lured, either individually or collectively, into such deals only to end up being economically exploited, in reality.
For instance, ever since the end of European colonization of Africa, which was also supposed to have ended the era of massive looting of African natural resources and the enslavement of its people by the Europeans, the practice has persisted anyway, though not in the same crude manner but largely through some so-called long-term economic cooperation deals, which gave such former colonial powers unhindered access to Africa’s vast natural resources and enormous consumer market.
With the active collaboration of Africa’s corrupt and irresponsible leaders, who such former colonial powers and other western and Asian countries continue to induce with kickbacks and other forms of corruption, and consequently manipulate them, Africa’s natural resources and vast consumer market continue to form the bases of economic growth for such former colonial powers at the expense of the continent’s strategic economic interests.
Unfortunately, whenever a country conceives strategic economic policies to achieve accelerated and sustainable economic growth, it finds no better place to get the “best” deals in terms of acquiring the necessary raw materials, natural resources and market share for its finished products and services, than Africa. It is in reality the steppingstone on which every country steps to escape poverty, while it ironically houses the poorest people on earth.
For instance, over the past two decades, China and India have achieved immense economic development thanks to their long-term economic engagement with Africa. As a matter of fact, they have become particularly notorious for arranging questionable deals with African leaders in much more flagrant manners compared with their western counterparts, who act rather cautiously to dodge their relatively stricter laws.
Therefore, Arabs also seem to have realized the imperative of a renewed engagement with countries they may likely exploit economically. Predictably also, and as their western and Asian counterparts have done, Arabs head for Africa where rulers are unfortunately prepared to jeopardize the strategic economic interest of their respective countries for personal gains.
Despite being also rich in natural resources especially oil, Arab countries have important economic interests to pursue in Africa. However, just like other so-called partners for economic development, they also take advantage of Africa’s massive consumer market on one hand and the inadequacy of its manufacturing base on the other, to re-export their imported and assembled goods to Africa, and also provide different services, which only require basic infrastructural facilities and relatively little financial commitment to make extremely huge profits.
While on the other hand, there is hardly any African investment of great significance in any Arab any country, even though according to the agreements that enable firms from Arab countries to operate in Africa, African firms can equally operate in the Arab countries. Nevertheless, even if they attempt to avail of such enabling provisions they would simply be frustrated on the bases of some largely silly technicalities.
For instance, some years back, the Kano-based Kabo Air introduced regular flights on Kano-Cairo route, which has for long been monopolized by Egypt Air, in addition to its several other flights from both Lagos and Abuja airports. Yet the Egyptian authorities reportedly stopped Kabo Air under the pretext that, the air services agreement between Nigeria and Egypt allows only Nigerian government-owned airline to operate on the route.
There are many other instances of investment and trade imbalance between Africa, and Nigeria in particular, and Arab countries, which must be addressed for Nigerians to benefit from such partnership deals. I would want see Dantata & Sawoe for instance operating in Egypt as the Egypt-based Arab Contractors operates in Nigeria. Likewise, I would want to see Glo operating in the United Arab Emirates just as Etisalat operates in Nigeria.
It is obvious that, unless African partners agree to equally open up their markets for African products and services, such summits would always be of little or no benefit to ordinary Africans, if not counterproductive for that matter. In any case however, African leaders are largely to blame for this situation, because if they had lived up to their responsibilities, Africa would not have remained a mere consumer market where almost everything of reasonable quality from textile to toothpicks has to be imported from outside the continent.
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