Sino-Nigerian Developmental Relations And Issues

Even as Nigeria embraces neoliberalism, its developmental performance continues to disappoint, with poverty graph going up, persistent inequality and unemployment rising to a peak. The book is concerned with the issue of Nigerian underdevelopment in the context of growing Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the region. Following recent Chinese involvement in Africa, there has been much demonization of Chinese FDI, and this fits into the general projection of MNCs as instruments of imperialism and exploitation. The neoclassical economists, on the other hand, eulogise the benefits of FDI in their glorification of global markets.
The book seeks a balance between the two views while revisiting the assumption of a lack of agency of a sovereign territory under globalisation noted in most of the current scholarship on the subject. The prospect, then, of development led by the state, including by utilising FDI for development is, by implication, considered bleak, if not entirely discounted. But exploring a view on Third World underdevelopment that rests on an institutional-statist perspective would lead us to begin to surmount the postulation that international capital is unmanageable and invincible. The book intends to do the same with regards to Nigeria.