The second international forum of the China-initiated Belt and Road, which Nigeria and about 35 other African countries are partners would hold in Beijing on the 25th and 26th of this month. It will be six years since the initiative was announced by Chinese, president XI Jinping 2013, and its unique opportunity to Africa is to close the historical gap that has challenged the pan-Africanist vision and agenda of regional integration and construction of economies of scale for efficient and competitive integration into the global value chain through procuring the enabling physical and institutional infrastructural connectivity.
Because of the deficit, African countries trade more with others than among themselves and for instance, the cost of shipping from one country in Africa to another is prohibitively outrageous and hampers the core value of economies of scale and opportunities of comparative advantage among the countries within the region.
Because of shortages in…
