Prospects And Challenges Of South-South Cooperation: An Appraisal Of The Nigeria-China Relations (2015-2023)
Keywords:
South-South, cooperation, leadership, prospects, challengesAbstract
South-South cooperation is a concept adopted to describe the relationship among developing countries. Nigeria and China belong in this group of countries. In addition, Nigeria and China are in bilateral relationship spanning four decades. Between 1970s and 1990s China transformed to becoming a leading global economy while Nigeria remains a toddler despite their shared values. The main objective of this study is to analyze the Nigeria-China relations within the purview of the South-South cooperation with a view to identifying its prospects and challenges. The study used data collected from secondary source and adopted content and thematic approaches to analyze its findings. It adopted Interdependence theory as its theoretical framework. The study identified the economic complementarities that exist between the two countries and finds that the prospect of Nigeria maximizing opportunities in her relations with China is high. This is because there are complementarities between them. In its findings, the study discovers that while China is maximizing the opportunities from the relationship, Nigeria is not, owing to leadership deficit, absence of political will, corrupt practices. The study recommends that Nigeria should develop a leadership group that has the perquisite qualifications in terms of education, moral latitude, the political will and economic wisdom to harness the abundant human and material resource for the overall development of the country.