Africa has become the cynosure of all eyes around the world. Every major country wants to be its friend. The Economist magazine calls it “the new scramble for Africa”. This is evident from the number of forums established by major countries to strengthen ties with the continent. China, Europe, Japan, Russia and the US, not to mention India, Brazil, Turkey and Israel, are actively engaging with Africa through summitry. Britain has now joined the race by establishing the UK-Africa Investment Summit, the first of which was held in London this month, on January 20.
Of course, Africa’s attractions are obvious. Here’s a continent whose population, currently 1.2 billion, is predicted to double to over 2 billion within the next three decades. Here’s a continent with six of the world’s 15 fastest growing economies. And here’s a continent which, if the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) succeeds, will be the world’s largest single market. So, it’s understandable why major developed and developing countries want not only to strengthen political and diplomatic links with Africa, but also develop or scale up investment, trade and economic cooperation with the continent. The Economist said that, from 2010 to 2016, more than 320 embassies were opened in Africa, describing it as “probably the biggest embassy-building boom anywhere, ever”. It’s indeed a new scramble for Africa!
But of these relationships, that between the UK and Africa has not, hitherto, been driven mainly by commercial considerations. Britain is genuinely pro-development and pro-Africa. As a member of the European Union, Britain was the strongest voice for Africa in Brussels. It constantly opposed attempts to protect the EU market against African exports; it pushed hesitant EU member states to support the WTO’s LDC Services Waiver, which allowed developed and developing countries to provide preferential treatment to services and service providers from the least-developed countries, LDCs. The UK is, so far, the only major developed country to have met, and legislated for, the UN foreign aid target of 0.7 per cent of gross national income, GNI. The only other countries that have met the target are Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Luxembourg, and Sweden.
Furthermore, the UK played a key role in securing debt relief for Africa, particularly Nigeria. The Commission for Africa, set up by Prime Minister Tony Blair in early 2004, made a strong case for debt relief, and, as the chair of the G8 in 2005, the UK pushed for a “Year of Africa”, with debt relief at its core. Thus, unsurprisingly, when Nigeria asked for debt relief from the Paris Club, it was the UK, under the leadership of Gordon Brown, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, that persuaded G8 finance ministers to support Nigeria’s request. As Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria’s finance minister at the time, recalled in her book, Reforming the Unreformable, “Brown was able to convince the G8 finance ministers to move to 60 per cent” as opposed to their opening offer of less than 50 per cent debt relief.
But is Africa ready for this new partnership? Is Nigeria willing to embrace an open post-Brexit Britain? Certainly, this would require Nigeria and Africa to embrace free trade and open markets
None of this is meant to say that other major countries have not supported Africa’s development. Of course, they have. China has invested heavily in Africa’s infrastructure, with President Xi Jinping making a $60 bn investment pledge at the 2018 China-Africa summit. Germany launched a Marshall Plan with Africa in 2018 to encourage investment on the continent. But, as I said earlier, while these other major countries have prioritised trade and investment with Africa, the UK is late to the game. As former prime Minister Tony Blair wrote in the British newspaper, The Guardian, “Up to now, despite the significant amount of aid Britain spends and the strong political and diplomatic footprint it has in Africa, investment lags”, stating that “Between 2014 and 2018, UK direct investment into Africa was $17 bn, well below China’s $72 bn, France’s $34bn and the US’s $31bn”. Of course, Britain still does significant trade and investment with Africa, but considering its historical links with the continent, many expected it to be a dominant foreign player there.
About two decades ago, in the 1990s, I was a member of the British Chapter of the British-Nigerian Chamber of Commerce. Every two years, members of the Nigerian Chapter, led by the then president, Chief Dotun Okubanjo, and later Chief Amzat Adebowale, held bilateral talks with their British counterparts and government officials. The constant talking points were Nigeria’s low trade with Britain and Britain’s low investments in Nigeria. The British would say that Nigeria’s trade imbalance with Britain was due to its mono-economy, the fact that it had nothing much to sell beyond oil. As for Britain’s relatively low investments in Nigeria, well, they blamed the country’s poor reputation and image overseas, bureaucratic bottlenecks and political tension. But the question often asked was: Why did the litany of woes not deter Germany, which was doing more business than Britain in Nigeria?
The truth is that the commercial relationships between Britain and Africa have long been influenced by negative perceptions. As the Financial Times put it recently, “For too long, Britain has viewed Africa through the prism of poverty”. But that’s now changing, thanks to Britain’s exit from the EU, which will happen at the end of this month!
Last week’s UK-Africa Investment summit, the first of its kind, was a hugely significant step towards establishing a new post-Brexit relationship between Africa and Britain. The summit, attended by President Muhammadu Buhari and several other African heads of state, as well as business leaders, laid down the marker in terms of Britain’s ambition for a comprehensive economic partnership with Africa to boost trade and investment, particularly in infrastructure and clean energy.
Boris Johnson, the British prime minister, set out the new agenda in an eloquent and friendly speech, enticing the African leaders with warm words. For instance, he assured President Museveni that “Ugandan beef cattle will have an honoured place on the tables of post-Brexit Britain”, and told President Kenyatta that “Britain without a nice cup of tea is barely worth thinking about”, adding, “and that means Britain without Kenya is barely worth thinking about”! What a good salesman!
But much of his speech was devoted to Nigeria. He spoke fondly about Lolade Oresanwo, who went to study in the UK and, after obtaining an MBA from Cranfield University, returned to Nigeria to set a waste-processing company, West Africa ENRG. He said the company would soon be generating clean electricity for schools and hospitals. But his main point was that it was a British-Nigerian connection that made this happen: Oresanwo’s company was using British-made equipment. This meant it was providing good returns for investors both in Nigeria and the UK. “It is a great example of what the modern UK-Africa partnership looks like”, he said, adding, in a thinly disguised dig at China, that it was not one based on “extraordinarily one-sided terms and delivered by a vast imported workforce”.
But is Africa ready for this new partnership? Is Nigeria willing to embrace an open post-Brexit Britain? Certainly, this would require Nigeria and Africa to embrace free trade and open markets. Interestingly, President Buhari told Britain in an article published in the London Times ahead of the summit: “Your visa restrictions and customs barriers must be removed”. Fair enough. But would Nigeria remove its own trade barriers? The UK has signed trade agreements with 11 African countries, but not with Nigeria. Is Nigeria willing to sign a comprehensive trade and investment agreement with the UK? It should!
Prime Minister Johnson ended with a powerful pitch: “Africa is the future”, he said, “and the UK has a huge and active role to play in that future”. But would Nigeria and Africa accept Britain’s offer? Well, they should!
