尼日利亚仍在努力探索一条适合本国国情的发展道路，这是一个充满艰辛的历程
文I伊肯内·埃梅乌（Ikenna Emewu） 尼日利亚非洲中国新闻研究中心执行主任 翻译I 檀生兰
●制定经济发展规划
●与中国建立经济联盟
58年来，尼日利亚作为一个独立国家一直在努力探索一条适合本国国情的发展道路。回顾过去，这是一段不容易也不平凡的历程。总的来看，取得的成就与付出的努力和期望值仍相差甚远。
尼日利亚提出的一些政策倡议，的确推动了经济腾飞，但与此同时政治斗争也带来一些负面影响，经济政策无法有效落实，导致尼日利亚独立后的发展道路充满艰辛。起初，以农业为主的尼日利亚经济在强有力的领导下生机勃勃，强劲发展。政府将农业收入用于重大项目建设，据说是为了通过紧急政治干预，快速改变群龙无首的不稳定现状。因为不稳定导致政策落实不到位，最终无法实现预定目标。
1971年，尼日利亚加入OPEC（石油输出国组织），不久后便赶上石油开发的热潮。由于支撑尼日利亚早期发展的经济因素大多都被抛弃，因此当石油经济由盛转衰时，尼日利亚重返过去的老路，日子一度非常艰难。截止19世纪80年代后半期，尼日利亚GDP年均增长8%，然而1989年，这个非洲最大的经济体衰退成一个贫困中挣扎的国家（数据源于世界银行）。仅仅一年后，尼日利亚被宣布失去自给自足的能力。原因很简单，尼日利亚过度依赖石油，石油产业占其经济总量的87%。1989年，由于国民生产总值急剧下滑，尼日利亚很快就被世行重新定位成贫穷国家。就这样，尼日利亚迅速从一个道路设施发达的非洲国家变成基础设施破旧的国家。俗话说，破坏容易重建难。多年以来，尼日利亚一直在与贫困作斗争，尤其是政治体制不稳定使问题更加严重。随着经济形势的逐渐好转，尼日利亚开始发展食品加工和汽车装配产业，生产的大量纺织品向一些非洲国家出口。但遗憾的是一旦体系坍塌，一切都不复存在。1985年，尼日利亚统计局数据显示国家经济12%基于工业，但在1985-1993这8年内，该数字骤减到4%，相当于年均衰退率1%，这些数据可以证明领导不稳定导致经济倒退。
制定经济发展规划
随着尼日利亚走向独立，尼日利亚很快于1964年1月成立了工业发展银行。1980年，该行资本金增至2.75亿奈拉。1972年，尼日利亚出台《企业推广法》并运用于本土化发展政策，同时还创建了国家工商银行。它们为经济发展做出巨大贡献，然而好景不长，它们成了总体局势动荡的受害者。
尼日利亚意识到放弃农业是一个错误，因为农业是一个国家经济的基石。1977年，尼日利亚极力改正错误，实施“解决温饱”行动，鼓励转向农业，提高效益。但据估计，由于政策实施者尝到原油产业挣钱快的甜头，该行动尽管宣传很成功，但落实效果甚微。
事实证明，“解决温饱”行动是失败的。举个恰当的例子，为了对石油产业进行规范，尼日利亚在同一年成立了国家石油委员会，之后41年实现了产业稳定发展，这是因为利益仍然是权利斗争的诱惑因素，向钱看成为全民行动。1971年之初，尼日利亚制定了“钢铁行业发展计划”，从政策和架构上确立了尼日利亚作为生产者和自给自足的地位。在1983年6月，尼兴建了阿焦库塔钢铁厂，全面投产。除此之外，还有三角洲钢铁公司，并计划在卡齐纳、乔斯和奥绍博建立轧钢厂。然而这一切最终只是停留在纸上谈兵。面对困难，尼日利亚开始纠正错误的观念，尝试摆脱困境。首先是1981年采取紧缩政策，之后于1987年实行整改计划。但是，军队引起的缺乏真诚和政治不稳定，成为影响政策实施的主要因素。
19世纪80年代，尼日利亚先后颁布了一系列经济法，但除了为法律行业提供了少量就业机会以外，大多没有发挥实际作用。这段时间，尼日利亚经历了第一次萧条，盲目地巨额国际贷款未能扭转局面。还有一个事实可以证明尼日利亚独立后的发展努力非常失败。1960年，根据世界银行和IMF评级，尼日利亚的发展潜力和前景等同于印度和巴西。这两个经济体均已荣登世界前20强，而尼日利亚仍在原地踏步，忙于脱贫。多年来，尼日利亚优秀人才纷纷移民国外，他们当中很多人都已成为其他国家的精英人士。不幸地是，人才缺失对大学制度造成严重影响。据报道，2000年年初尼日利亚驻外注册医生有27000人，远超出从事教师的人数。今天，美国有数据显示70%的非裔美国学者和专家都是尼日利亚人。
2015年至2016年间，尼日利亚经历了历史上最严重的衰退和危机，陷入经济大萧条，现在能否走出萧条尚有争议。政府宣布2017年经济增长率最终为0.8%，但是有现象表明微观形势未发生什么变化，基础商品的价格高涨超出人们的承受范围，当地货币的价值也在不断下降。工薪阶层收入的实际价值连续直线下跌，情况不容乐观。专家认为一个国家如果人口以3.2%的速度保持增长，那么其宣布的GDP增长0.8%对走出萧条实际上没什么意义。
与中国建立经济联盟
尼日利亚衰退期正好是中国崛起的阶段，中国生活水平的提高也恰恰是尼日利亚所缺失的。由于尼日利亚工业生产能力下降到最低水平，人们只好选择购买其他国家生产的基础商品。中国崛起和强大刚好满足了尼日利亚的需求。
尼日利亚个体商人与中国制造商开始全方位的业务往来，他们从中国进口40%的基础工业制成品，中尼双边贸易稳步提升，2016年约为 170亿美元，给中国带来巨大贸易顺差，当然这也可以理解。
2016年9月，本人参加在广州举办的“对非投资论坛”，随后参观了位于该城市被称为中国对非出口口岸的南沙港。当地政府表示30%的对非出口商品被运往拉各斯的阿帕帕港，而非洲出口商品主要是原材料木材，主要来自尼日利亚。中国还是尼日利亚木薯粉的最大购买商，事实上尼日利亚也是世界上最大的木薯生产国。在北京的一次交流中，中石油公司私下告知本人他们只购买了尼日利亚原油的1%，对尼日利亚石油行业没什么投资兴趣。但是，2014年BBC纪录片和一篇百科文书证明中尼两国的关系非常亲密，他们通过调查发现尼日利亚人有85%喜欢中国，10%不喜欢，5%一般，据此评定尼日利亚为世界上最支持中国的国家。没错，很多中国产品被认为质量低下，但是诸如家电产品之类的价格非常低廉，多年后我们发现便携类电子产品的质量也没那么差。
1972年，尼日利亚与中国建立了外交关系。2015年，中国在联合国力挺尼日利亚，支持尼申请成为安理会常任理事国。此举让尼日利亚深受鼓舞，它表明中国致力于尼日利亚发展双边关系的诚意。今天，在尼日利亚经常能见到中国人，他们涉足超市经营、工程建设、制造业等领域。中国铁路建设公司一直在履行恢复尼国家铁路系统的合作协议，修建连接拉各斯、卡杜纳州、阿布贾全长2000公里的铁路，以及拉各斯至阿布贾的轻轨铁路。
过去15年，中国土木工程建筑公司与政府签约，成为尼日利亚桥梁、机场航站楼和道路工程的主要承包商。尼日利亚在西南部的奥贡州建立了一个重要自贸区，与拉各斯相邻，由广东省政府负责与该州政府对接。最近，尼日利亚又在大西洋沿岸的拉各斯成立了莱基自贸区，这是中国与尼日利亚联邦政府的合作项目。拉各斯州政府和一些私营公司非常青睐尼丹格特集团，该集团承建了一个大型石油化工炼油厂，竣工后有望成为非洲最大的炼油厂，届时将邀请中国公司加盟。此外，尼日利亚将建设莱基深水港，在全面投入运营后它将是非洲最大的港口，年吞吐量将超过2000万集装箱。总部位于山东省济南市的中国重型汽车集团有限公司已经开始运营国际机场、物流专线和生产线等项目，价值160亿美元左右，由中尼双方共同出资，计划在项目完成后直接创造35万个就业机会。本人在中国生活和学习期间，经常听很多中国公司提到丹格特集团是他们在非洲的主要合作伙伴，如中国重汽、江苏海外集团、中化集团、中财集团、中非发展基金等等。殷讷森(Innoson)是一家自主品牌汽车制造商，位于尼日利亚东南部，在将近10年内对国家经济做出了巨大贡献。
中国对尼日利亚的影响力似乎在逐渐上升，中国甚至向尼日利亚发放政府贷款。据称，今年中国向尼日利亚提供了45亿美元的农业贷款，用于推动农业机械化发展。每年，特别是通过“中非合作论坛”平台，都有来自尼日利亚成千上万的各行各业专家来华参加培训，提升人力资本，这将极大促进尼日利亚的经济增长和发展。2016年，本人便是“中非媒体交流奖学金项目”的受益者，它让我对今日中国和中国媒体招聘平台有了更深入的了解。我们期待通过更广泛的交流获得更多的知识，为此双方需要继续加大投入力度。最重要的是，中国在尼日利亚经济发展中发挥重大作用，帮助尼日利亚实现工业化，推动尼日利亚的经济发展。 （编辑：张梅）
英文版：
Nigeria’s Journey to Economic Independence in 58 Years and China’s Partnership Role
By Ikenna Emewu, Executive Director of the Africa China Press and Research Centre
It’s been 58 years Nigeria has struggled as independent nation to chart her own economic course. And those years have been as dramatic as they were eventful. But on a holistic scale, the success has been far less than the efforts and expectations.
With some good take-off based on policy initiatives and the downsides arising from political altercations that never allowed the economic policies to bear fruits, Nigeria’s economic emancipation journey since independence hasn’t been a very nice one.
At inception, the country had a robust agro-based economy that thrived on good leadership which deployed the earnings from agriculture into meaningful development. But the narrative was to quickly change with the emergency of political intervention that was so unstable and rudderless. The instability never allowed a percolation of policies to yield the required gains.
After Nigeria joined the OPEC in 1971 and quickly got caught in the jet stream of oil boom, most of those economic factors that underpinned the Nigerian early economic stories were jettisoned and when the boom turned doom, Nigeria flowed in the same tide.
Bad enough, the country with a steady GDP growth of an average 8% up to the second half of the 80s and the continent’s largest economy plummeted to a poor and struggling nation in 1989 by World Bank rating and just a year after, it was declared unfit to pick sustain itself.
The reason was simple – Nigeria over depended on oil that was 87% of its economic life. So with the gross national production (GNP) sharp decline in 1989, the nation was quickly reclassified a poor nation by the World Bank.
That is how the country swiftly migrated from the one in Africa with the best road network to one with worst infrastructure. Because of the ease in destruction than construction, the struggling trend with poverty has persisted especially buoyed by very unstable political system.
When the days were a little rosy, Nigeria had started well in developing local industrial capacity in processed food, automobile assembly, and had enough local textile production that it was also an exporter to some African countries. Badly, when the structure crashed, it took along everything.
A good case linking the regression to unstable leadership was in 1985 when the Nigerian Board of Statistics data indicated that the economy was 12% industry based, but that declined rapidly within eight years to 4% in 1993, an average of 1% steady regression for eight years.
Intention to grow
As Independence unfolded, Nigeria so early created the Nigeria Industrial Development Bank in January 1964. This grew to a capital base of N275.4m in 1980. Within this period of its existence, there was also the creation of the Nigeria Enterprise Promotion Law in 1972 that made its footprint in the indigenization policy. Also brought into existence was the National Bank for Commerce and Industry. While they made good contributions, their impacts didn’t last as they were also victims of the vagaries of the general unsteady system.
With a realization of the mistake of leaving agriculture that formed the bedrock of the nation’s economy, the country in 1977 made deliberate effort to correct the error and created the Operation Feed the Nation (OFN) that encouraged a return to agriculture and the benefits. But on assessment, the impact wasn’t much as the implementers had tasted the sweet savour of crude oil and the fast cash accompanying it. OFN did better in rhetoric.
A good example of what happened to the OFN and its failure is the fact that the Nigerian National Petroleum Commission (NNPC) was created the same year to regulate the oil industry and remains a stable success story 41 years after because that is the spine of the money that remains the allure of power struggle and dominance in Nigeria.
Earlier in 1971, the Steel Development Plan was birthed to provide the policy and structure for Nigeria to be a producer and self sufficient in steel. It culminated in the setting up of the Ajaokuta Steel Company that commenced full production in June 1983. There was also the Delta Steel Company and with expansion plan to build steel rolling mills in Katsina, Jos and Osogbo. At last, those ones didn’t exist beyond the paperwork.
When the bad days set in, Nigeria started tinkering with ideas and experiments to get out of the quagmire first with the Austerity Measure in about 1981 and later the Structural Adjustment Prograamme (SAP) in 1987. Yet, in all these, one common factor dominated the policy implementation – insincerity and political instability made possible by the military.
The 1980s witnessed a season of multiplicity of economic laws and most of them never made any meaningful impact beyond creating few jobs for those engaged in the agencies. It was during this period that the nation experienced its first recession never ameliorated by huge and reckless international borrowings.
Proof of Nigeria’s economic misadventure since independence is that at birth in 1960, the World Bank and IMF had rated it at par with India and Brazil in potentials and growth possibilities. While those two occupy their comfortable places among the top 20 strongest economies of the world, Nigeria struggles at the base of the ladder and grapples with poverty.
For years, Nigeria’s best experts migrated out and are today among the best brains that run many other countries. The unfortunate brain drain seriously affected the university system. In the early 2000, Nigeria reportedly had 27,000 registered medical practitioners abroad and far more than that in lecturers. Today, US data reveals that 70% of African scholars and experts in the country are Nigerians.
In 2015 and 2016, Nigeria experienced its worst economic depression and crises and slumped into a deep recession that is still arguable if it’s out of it. Government announced that the economy grew at 0.8% in 2017 eventually, but the signs are not there of any difference at the micro level where price of basic commodities still soar out of reach and with dwindling value of the local currency. The real value of incomes of paid workers keeps plummeting and hardship persists. Experts argue that a country with population growing at 3.2%, an announced GDP growth of 0.8% out of recession actually doesn’t mean anything in reality.
The China alliance
The decline of Nigeria coincides with the rise of China. So naturally, what Nigeria lacks, it finds in China – handouts for improved living.
Because Nigeria’s industrial production came to its worst state, the citizens have the option of looking for alternative economies where they can procure the basics. China’s rise and strength readily filled that void.
Little wonder Nigeria individual businesspeople went into whole scale trading with Chinese manufacturers from where they import almost 40% of the basic finished products. This upped steadily the trade volume of Nigeria and China to about $17b in 2016, and understandably, hugely in favour of China.
In September 2016, I was in Guangzhou to attend the Investing in Africa Forum after which we visited the Nan Sha Port in the city reputed to be the outlet for exports to Africa. The authorities said that 30% of the total exports to Africa go to the Apapa port in Lagos. Conversely, they also stated that the largest volume of imports from Africa is also from Nigeria and it’s mainly raw material timber. Again, China is the largest buyer of Nigeria’s cassava pellets, which the country is actually the world’s largest producer. China National Petroleum told me in person in Beijing at an interactive that it buys just 1% of Nigeria’s crude oil and also with little investment interest in Nigeria’s oil sector in Nigeria.
However, to underscore the extent of attachment between Nigeria and China, a BBC documentary in 2014 and also a Wikipedia document rates Nigeria as the world’s number one pro-China nation with 85% of the population liking China, 10% against and 5% neutral. No doubt, many Chinese products though largely viewed as of low quality has forced down the cost of essential gadgets like home appliances and hand held gadgets where their qualities have not been so bad over time.
It was in 1972 that Nigeria established diplomatic relationship with China and in 2015 at the UN, China demonstrated her attachment to Nigeria by supporting at the Security Council Nigeria’s bid to be become a permanent member of the Council. That is a boost to Nigeria’s outlook and also indication of China’s sincere commitment to relate with Nigeria.
It is very common to see Chinese citizens in Nigeria where they engage in sales at large supermarkets and in construction, manufacturing and other sectors today.
The Chinese railway construction company has been executing contracts to rehabilitate the nation’s railway system that covers over 2000km between Lagos and Kano, Kaduna and Abuja and the Lagos and Abuja light metro rail links.
In the past 15 years, China Civil Engineer Construction Company (CCECC) has become a major player in building bridges, airport terminals and roads as government contractor.
A major free trade zone in Ogun State, South West Nigeria, just adjacent Lagos is operated by the Guangdong Provincial government in liaison with the state.
The latest is the Lekki Free Trade Zone in Lagos located by the Atlantic Ocean. It is a partnership project between Nigeria federal government, the Lagos State government and some private sector players like the Dangote Group that builds a mega petrochemical refinery reputed to be the largest in Africa on completion and Chinese firms.
There is also the Lekki Deep Sea port there aimed to be the continent’s largest at full operation and will handle at least 20m containers a year.
With an international airport, logistics lines, production lines where the Sinotruk with head office in Jinan, Shandong Province already operate, the project is valued at about $16b. The funding is in alliance with Chinese investors and targets to provide about 350,000 direct jobs when completed.
In my days and study in China, it was common to hear Chinese companies such as Sinotruk, the Jiangsu Overseas Company, Sinochem, Sinoma, the China Africa Development Fund (CADFund) and many more mention the Dangote Group as their major partner in Africa.
A major indigenous automobile plant in Eastern Nigeria, Innoson, is operated with Chinese partners and that has made significant contribution to Nigeria’s economy in close to 10 years of its operation.
The China impact in Nigeria seems to gather momentum every year with even government loans to Nigeria government. This year, there was the announced $4.5b agriculture loan from China to encourage mechanization of agriculture in Nigeria.
Every year, especially on the platform of the Forum on China Africa Cooperation, thousands of experts of various fields attend trainings and human capital enhancement in China which contribute in no little measure to the growth and expansion of the economy. In 2016, I was a beneficiary in the Africa China media exchange fellowship and that got me further empowered with better knowledge of China and with a media platform today that employs hands.
Because of the expectation of better gains and engagement, more still needs to be done by the two sides towards each other. And most important is that China’s addition or role in Nigeria’s economic tale has the benefit of assisting to industrialize Nigeria which goes a long way to give a pep to the economy.
