China, please come and recolonise us

By Dons Eze, PhD

In the year 1879, five chiefs from the Cameroon petitioned Queen Victoria of England in what they called “a nice long letter”, requesting Britain to come and annex the territory.

“Plenty wars here in our country, plenty murder, and plenty idol worshippers”, they had cried, “when we knew about the Calabar River, how they all have English laws in their town, and how they have put away all their superstitions, Oh, we shall be very glad to be like Calabar River”.

In the same vein, like those Cameroun chiefs, we now cry: “plenty wars here in Nigeria, plenty murder, plenty kidnapping, plenty corruption, plenty unemployment, plenty poverty, plenty bad government, oh!, when we look at many other countries and see how things are working there, we shall be very glad to have China to come and recolonize us”.

We really thank the Honourable Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Amaechi, and his team, for making our case very simple. We no longer need to write any “nice long letter” to China to come and recolonize us. This has already been taken care of by a clause said to be in the loan agreement between Nigeria and China, where China will automatically recolonize Nigeria if she defaults in repaying the loan. The only thing required of us is to pray that Nigeria will default in repaying the loan, so that China will come and recolonize us.

If China were to come over here and recolonize us, everything would be moving in the right direction. In the very immediate, since we have found it very difficult to handle our security problems, the Chinese would make sure that they ruthlessly deal with the Boko Haram insurgents that have been tormenting our lives, that have been giving us sleepless nights these past ten years.

They would immediately dismantle the network of terrorists and bandits that have been causing mayhem in our land, killing people on daily basis, in particular, in the Northwest part of the country, in states like Zamfara, Katsina and Southern Kaduna.

The Chinese would equally not spare the AK-47 wielding Fulani herdsmen that have been wrecking our towns and villages, destroying people’s farmlands, maiming, kidnapping and killing people at will.

If the Chinese were to be here, the issue of corruption would become a thing of the past. China has zero tolerance for corruption. They do not play to the gallery, nor are they selective in handling corruption issues. The other day, we saw two Chinese government officials publicly executed, after they have been found guilty of corruption.

So, if China were to recolonize us, by the time two or three highly placed government officials were made public show, as a result of corruption, we would all quickly learn our lesson.

China has over 1.4 billion people, and she is able to comfortably feed them. But Nigeria with only 200 million people cannot feed her own people. In fact, Nigeria has even become the world capital of poverty. It is not that China is more naturally endowed than Nigeria, but because Nigeria cannot manage, or does not know how to manage what she has.

So, if China were to be here, they would definitely put everything in its proper place. They would banish poverty and unemployment from our land. They would transfer to us their technological know-how. They would teach us how to be self-reliant, and not to be looking for other people to provide us with our needs. China would teach us the secrets of their robust economy, and how they now rule the world scientifically, and technologically, etc.

The Chinese are disciplined people. They follow things methodically, and allow things to take their normal course. No wrong overtaking. The Chinese are not hypocrites. They do what they say, and not say one thing, but do a different thing.

Looking back, sixty years after independence, we really do not think that Nigeria was matured enough to have gotten independence at the time she did. This is because every step we had taken since then, has been a miss-step, putting forward the wrong foot. It is either that we did not first crawl before we started walking, or that we did not properly learn how to walk.

Ordinary elections, we have not been able to conduct them well. Not only for those involving our day-to-day politicians, but also those involving our various professional associations. Look at the recently conducted Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) and Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) elections. How decency was thrown overboard.

There is nothing like good apprenticeship, learning one’s trade properly, before starting off on his own. It makes one well-grounded in whatever he does. If Nigeria were to be well apprenticed to Great Britain, or if Britain were to be sincere and honest in teaching Nigeria the art of governance before granting her independence, many things would not have been as bad as they are in our country today.

But Britain was never an honest teacher, nor Nigeria a diligent student. Britain practised the art of divide and rule in Nigeria, while Nigerians were so naive not to have understood that the aim was to keep them divided, while their resources were being exploted. That is why everything in Nigeria today “na jaga-jaga”, why the country is moving in awkward direction.

So, we need China here. We want them to come over and put things in their proper shape.