BRI cooperation creates opportunities: Nigerian scholar

Ehizuelen Michael Mitchell Omoruyi's story with the Belt and Road Initiative started out of his curiosity to find out how this colossal plan could lift African people out of poverty via infrastructure development.

He also wanted to be one of the first Africans to introduce the BRI to Africans through publication as infrastructure development has become a key ingredient in Africa-China relations.

Omoruyi has lived in China for 18 years. He earned his master's degree and PhD at Xiamen University in Fujian province of China in 2009 and 2012, respectively. Since 2015, he has been working at the Institute of African Studies at Zhejiang Normal University and is now executive director of the Center for Nigerian Studies at the institute.

Omoruyi said that in the past, China supported African nations in attaining political independence, but over the past decade, China — through the BRI — has redefined its willingness to support African nations in gaining economic dependence.

He refers to the initiative as a "handshake" between China and African countries, because the BRI is "an inclusive alternative cooperation model that creates an opportunity to work, share, prosper, and succeed together", which is unlike a "handout" where one party exclusively depends on the other for assistance.

The numerous development dividends provided by the BRI have been connected to diverse economic opportunities linked to industrial cooperation, skills development, and technology transfer that could promote African countries' economic diversification, which the African nations consider to be important for their development, he said.

"Furthermore, the BRI acts as a platform to strengthen African nations' self-development capacity, enrich and improve African people's livelihoods, promote their economic growth and social headway, and create opportunities for the African nations to break free from dependency and escape the trap of poverty," he said.

Enhancing communication

To enhance the communication between China and his home country Nigeria, in 2016 Omoruyi launched the Center for Nigerian Studies, through which Zhejiang Normal University has signed 10 memorandums of understanding with top Nigerian Universities. These agreements have created opportunities for both Nigerian and Chinese scholars and students to visit both countries for academic collaboration as well as to develop new research programs driven by jointly developed agendas with contemporary relevance.

The center has achieved a lot, he said, and he was most proud of the creation of the new master's degree program in Chinese Contemporary Studies at the University of Nigeria Nsukka and the master's degree program in Chinese Development Studies at the University of Ibadan.

"Basically, the programs intend to teach Nigerians and students from other parts of the world the secret behind China's development strategy that made China the leading champion of development among developing countries through research and teaching."

Regarding some Western nations' accusations that the BRI was creating a "debt trap", Omoruyi said that it is worth noting that one key dilemma for African countries that want to build large-scale infrastructure for development purposes is financial constraints.

Large-scale development projects have been launched in several African countries as an essential part of their long-term development plans to help the continent achieve the vision set out by the African Union's Agenda 2063.However, with low savings and depleting foreign reserves, securing investments for these projects is difficult for most African countries, he said.

"The good news is that within the context of Africa-China cooperation, China has emerged as an important stakeholder in Africa's infrastructure growth over the last decade, with added impetus under the BRI," he said.

"The 'debt trap diplomacy' has been a Cold War mindset and China will never subscribe to this", he said, adding that the BRI was lifting nations out of a trap of no development rather than duping them into a "debt trap".