During an interview at the 2024 World Economic Forum in Davos, Kashim Shettima, the vice president of Nigeria, has made it clear that the country do not travel to the Western world to beg.
By Samuel Odunayo Afolabi
He emphasized, while pointing that out, that Nigeria is rather traveling to meet with other communities for business purposes which are built on a “pedestal of equality“.
In his words, Shettima did not only note that Africa is far from being a poor continent, but also brandish the superiority of the continent’s value over many of the much revered western continents.
As the most prominent official among those delegated to represent the president of Nigeria in Switzerland, Kashim Shettima made clear that his purpose was to sell the “Nigerian Dream“, which is to initiate a “mutually beneficial relationship with western nations” given the financial robustness of Nigeria and the African continent at large.
I wonder how much laughable this may sound to you, when it is even obvious how heavily laden Nigeria has been with both external and internal debts.
Finding the full vest of this comedy in the statement where he mentioned that Nigerian leaders’ purpose of traveling to the West was not to beg, but to stand equal, neck and neck, with the West, I cannot but submit that the Nigerian leadership is living far from the shadows of reality.
According to the Debt Management Office (DMO), Nigeria is recorded to be owing up to five countries a total of $5.16 billion as at March, 2023. Much of this debt has not yet been settled, but Shettima was busy painting Nigeria as if it was a debt-free system independently rich enough to discuss world progress with other first-world climes.
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With this much debt still burdened on Nigeria, is it meet for the vice-president to start wearing the goggle of pride, dispelling objective figures, while spewing mere hyperboles in the face of the world of the exactitude of our readiness as a partner and our capabilities as a nation, and/or continent.
So, does it suffice to say if we have not come to the West with our “begging bowls”, we have come instead with our loads of indebtedness which do not in anyway interpret our position as an equal but as a beggar who has only come to beg for more?
