Nigeria/China Trade: How China Is Milking Nigeria Dry

By Mike Odeh James

• Over 1.4 billion Rosewood Trees illegally hewn by Chinese
•Nigeria loses N353 Bn of solid minerals to Chinese activities

By Mike Odeh James
According to research from the Food and Agricultural Organization, FAO, Nigeria has one of the highest rate of deforestation in the world, while its Asian trading partner, China, has one of the lowest deforestation rates.

The reports further stated that between 2000 and 2005 the country lost 55.7% of its primary forests, and the rate of forest change increased by 31.2% to 3.12% per annum.

In 2005 12.2%, the equivalent of 11,089,000 hectares (27,400,000 acres) had been deforested in Nigeria and between 1990 and 2000, Nigeria lost an average of 409,700 hectares of forest every year, equal to an average annual deforestation rate of 2.38%.
Between 1990 and 2005, in total Nigeria lost 35.7% of its forest cover, or around 6,145,000 hectares.
As the country witnesses massive deforestation, so has China’s involvement in the forest sector of the country increased albeit gradually.

And by 2011 to 2017, the Chinese gradually upped their quest for forest in Nigeria targeting a particular kind of timber called Kosso in local Nigerian language but called Rosewood internationally.

Rosewood is an expensive timber which is widely seen as a symbol of affluence in South East Asia and China. The Rosewood or Kosso is to make highly polished furniture, flooring and used for building expensive houses in China.

According to Garba Aliyu, chief researcher with Solutions Network Media, a media house that is involved in fighting climate change, “As the Middle and upper class in China expands due to the economic boost, so did their appetite to acquire furniture that are made from Rosewood or Kosso. And so Chinese businessmen flooded Africa in quest for rosewood.”

Mr. Garba was by all means right, for as early as 2005 – 2010, Chinese businessmen flooded Gambia and other African countries and harvested the Kosso from the tiny states.

When the dangers of what the Chinese were doing became known to the Gambia authority, a moratorium was placed on the exports of logs from the Gambia.

Conversely, the Chinese log dealers converged on Nigeria and having found that the country was blessed with Kosso, they wreak untold havoc.

Chinese agents in search of Kosso trees have traversed states like Kogi, Ekiti, Ondo, Ogun, Taraba, Kaduna, Adamawa and Cross River where these trees are found since 2013 and have felled an unprecedented number of trees as never witnessed before.

So as timber merchants working for Chinese businessmen are moving from one state to another depleting the rosewood resources in the forests, leaving blighted and raped landscapes without minding the lasting effects of unrestrained harvesting of the product on the environment, environmentalists are alarmed.

Environmentalists are worried that this unrestrained and uncontrolled harvesting of the special type of timber across the states will have heavy consequences on the environment and help immensely in increasing global warming which is currently threatening the world.

Apart from the effect on the environment, the experts fear that the illegal activities of local and Chinese merchants will also have telling economic implications in the near future on many communities where the forests that are being violated are located.

Like what they did to the textile industry in Nigeria, the Chinese have about 30,000 companies dedicated to logging in West Africa with special preference to Nigeria and Ghana.

These companies employed both legal and illegal means to harvest forest resources from Nigeria with special taste for the Rosewood or Kosso tree.

According to Business Highlights Intelligence Unit, BHIU, “Checks in parts of Ore, Sagamu and Ijebu-Ode axis in the South West show that illegal logging and containerization are now on a daily basis on suspicious collaboration with locals and even relevant law enforcement officials.

Some of the operators who spoke to our undercover reporter revealed that the woods are containerized and illegally smuggled to China and other South-East Asian countries where they are used for wood works.

“In an interview with Ogun Customs Command and a top official at Federal Operations Unit (FOU), Ikeja, they confirmed steady seizure of containerized woods billed for exports and assured that they will continue to track the perpetrators until zero logging is attained.

DESERT HERALD learnt that between 2016 and 2018 over 1.4million logs of Rosewood trees illegally felled were smuggled to China in what could be said to the biggest smuggling ever in history of timber laundering.

The feat was made possible when Nigerian authorities issued permits to illegal Chinese companies to export Rosewood trees to Chinese and what followed was a massive cutting down of the trees resulting in over 2 million trees being hewn down and illegally shipped to China.

According to the Director of Forest Campaigns Environmental Investigation Agency, Lisa Handy, ‘‘We found massive harvest of illegal harvesting smuggling from the neighbouring country of Cameroun.

“The felling of trees in national parks, violation of Nigeria’s log export ban, and the systematic forgery of legal documents, all of these routinely facilitated by bribery in both Nigeria and China are some of the ways he deals are tied.’’

According to findings by DESERT HERALD, Chinese nationals would pay huge amount of cash ranging from N200,000 to N1,000,000 to corrupt Nigerian officials to get signed and stamped permit documents which allow them free access to roam around Nigeria’s forest to cut down Kosso.

These pre-stamped and pre-signed papers are normally left with blank spaces so that the Chinese can fill the spaces with the numbers of trees they are willing to fell. More importantly, the documents aid them evade restrictions at the port of exports.

Worried by the impunity and ingenuity displayed by the Chinese in deforestation of Nigeria, the country invoked the treaty of Convention on international trade in endangered species, CITES, a treaty which aimed at curbing illegal cutting down of trees and deforestation.

Being a signatory of the treaty, the Chinese government stopped the shipment of over 10,000 containers filled with illegally felled trees from Nigeria and were on their way to China.

The worth of the 10,000 containers filled with Kosso is said to be $300 million and a physical estimation of the containers filled with Kosso would be about 4,362 feet tall. Put together, the Chinese have removed an entire forest of endangered species from Nigeria.

According to a report by Thisday Newspapers, the logs in those containers are about 1.4 million.

Once again, one would have expected that those containers would be returned to Nigeria and investigations commenced into how such huge quantity of Rosewoods were smuggled out of Nigeria, but the reversed happened.

After being on the high seas for months, the Chinese managed to put their ingenuity to work, paid $1million to corruption Nigerian officials who then issued 10,000 CITES permits to China and the containers were released into China.

Investigations further revealed that under the CITES treaty, only the Minister of Environment can sign a CITES permit.

Amina Mohammed, who was then the minister of environment, was said to have allegedly signed over 10,000 CITES permit which was also in excess and constituted a breach.

ILLEGAL MINING AND NATIONAL SECURITY

As China increases its presence in Africa’s most populous country and against the backdrop of illegal mining activities in the country, Chinese nationals are also found to be involved in illegal mining activities in the country.

About thirty-five million metric tonnes of unprocessed solid minerals especially gold is reportedly smuggled from Nigeria yearly, resulting in the loss of revenue amounting to billions of naira.

Analyst are of the opinion that if those unprocessed solid minerals were refined and processed in Nigeria then exported properly, revenues from its sales would be nearly equal to the revenue Nigeria is currently amassing from the oil sector.

Similarly, the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, NEITI, reports stated that between 2016 and 2018, the country lost about N353 billion in gold smuggled out of Nigeria and sold to international markets.

By and large, the Chinese are seen as largely responsible for the situation whereby unprocessed solid minerals resources like gold are being exported from the country without any value added to the commodities.

According to Alex Agbo, a financial expert, the Chinese are all over the country especially in the North and they are heavily mining gold, diamond and other solid mineral resources.

“Go to Nasarawa, Katsina, Zamfara, Sokoto, Kaduna and Borno states, the Chinese are there. They are heavily embedded with the locals and providing them the knowledge to mine gold, diamond and copper illegally,” Agbo hinted.

Mr. Agbo then drew a comparison between Liberia and Sierra Leone, warning that there is danger in what the Chinese are doing.

“Apart from running down the economy of the country, the Chinese are also contributing to the security failures of the country.

He further explains that “mining in conflict areas such as Zamfara, Southern Kaduna and Adamawa requires that miners should be armed or have armed escorts. The question we should be asking is, who are the ones providing security for the illegal miners?

“The Chinese also are heavily connected to top government officials so that they can do about anything and get away with it,” he added.

As if to prove Mr. Agbo right, the police announced that 17 Chinese were recently arrested for engaging in illegal mining of gold in Zamfara and Osun states.

Desert Herald can conveniently report that there are more Chinese involved in illegal mining of unprocessed solid minerals than reported in the press. If they are arrested, some diplomatic strings are pulled and they are released almst immediately.

Adegbite, Nigeria’s Minister of Mines and Steel Development, buttressed the corrupting influence of the Chinese when he raised an alarm that the Federal Government was being pressurized by influential Nigerians to free the illegal miners who included Senegalese, Burkinabes and Nigerians.

But the Minister insisted that the FG would go ahead to prosecute the suspects to “the full extent of the law,” to serve as deterrent to others engaging in the act.

The determination of the Federal Government to prosecute the illegal miners may not be feasible as the Osun State Government has not released the foreigners to the Federal Government for prosecution, rather, emissaries are sent to plead that the Chinese be let off the hook.

According to sources in the Ministry of Mines and Steel Development, the suspects are still in the custody of the state government, and there are fears that they may be set free without being charged.

This development highlights how easily Chinese nationals are able to penetrate the fabrics of the Nigerian state while causing conflict between the Federal and State Governments and feeding fat on the .

Analysts are also warning that the way and manner with which nationals from China could go to conflict zones such as Zamfara, Borno and Kaduna in search of unprocessed solid minerals and Rosewoods portends danger to our national security.

They opine that these illegal miners and loggers could easily decide to arm or provide support for insurgents and in return, the insurgents guarantee them free access to endangered species and other natural resources needed by China.

One thing is however pertinent, the Asians are wreaking havoc to the Nigerian economy and weakening the security apparatus of the country through bribery and corruption.

DATA MINING

In recent times, Nigerians on Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp are faced with tantalising loan offers from various lending platforms.

The lending organizations offer cheap loans to its subscribers without collateral and with many of the rigours that accompany normal bank loans.

Most times, the lending platforms give out loans ranging from N2000 to 200,000 or more to individuals, and the criteria for such loans are usually the Bank Verification Number, BVN, Credit card and bank account of the subscriber.

As simply as this is, Mr. Alex Agbo warns, “that most of the online lending platforms are owned by Chinese and that the demand for people’s BVN, facial recognition by these platforms may portend security risk in the near future.

According to Alex, the BVN leaves too much information at the disposal of the lender and he could use it to his benefit and to the detriment of the country.
As Desert Herald rounds up this reports, already the nation is agog with the issue of Chinese opacity as regards the 17 different types of loans Nigeria has obtained from Beijing.

It is also warning of another set of traps by the Chinese.