I remember reading an expensive report which claimed more tires were sold in Abuja than Lagos.
I quickly discarded it, but a foreign analyst, with no knowledge of Nigeria's context might not know, and still quote the report.
A big problem with data from Africa, is that a lot of it is not reliable.
I've paid for expensive reports, only to figure out that they simply lifted data from the UN Comtrade database and the NBS, and done little else.
Much of this data might not be reliable.
In fact, in many cases, you are better off designing your own survey questionnaires and sending people to the field to obtain the data. (It could be even cheaper and more reliable than some of these expensive reports).
The authority people give to suspect analyses is sometimes amusing. I remember a superstar US geopolitical analyst who had certain ideas about infrastructure financing in Africa.
I asked him whether he had looked at tax to GDP ratios, his response was a blank stare.
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If Beijing loses interest in Africa, so will Washington.
We've watched this movie before. Once the Cold War ended, and Moscow was no longer a major player in Africa, Washington lost interest in Africa - left it to Beijing.
"Cold War hysteria" has rekindled some "interest".
Problem is that Washington has no real, sustained interest in Africa that isn't linked to the activities of some external actor, be it Al Qaeda or Beijing.
We saw this in the 1990s, when Washington pretty much lost all interest in Africa.
US policy makers know average Americans have no interest in Africa, so selling scare stories about "China taking over Africa", might trigger interest.
But even at that, the attitude of most Americans to Africa is, "let China have that sh*t hole, we've wasted enough money there".
I think the collapse of research in Nigerian universities in the wake of the IMF/SAP era is one of the biggest tragedies in our history.
Western funding/academics now dominated research, and research topics were determined by Western, not local interests.
At one point, you had to write something about HIV/AIDS to get research funding, or act a subordinate to some Western researcher.
Oil and gas companies determined the direction of research, they were only interested in limiting their liability for oil spills/environmental issues
The Niger Delta Militancy triggered an inflow of research dollars, as the US still depended heavily on Nigerian crude (this was before the advent of Shale Oil and Gas).
Along came 9/11 and Boko Haram, and millions of dollars went into funding research into "radicalization".
In North Korea, Kim Il Sung handed over to his son, Kim Jong Il, who then handed over to his son, Kim Jong Un, some say with "Chinese support";
But there are many examples in Africa.
1. Omar Bongo to Ali Bongo (Gabon, French support).
2. Gnassingbe Eyadema to Faure Gnassingbe (Togo, French support). 3. Idriss Deby to Mahamat Deby (Chad, French support).
Likely father to son dictator transitions. 1. Paul Biya to Frank Biya (Cameroon, French support) 2. Museveni to Muhoozi Kainerugaba (Uganda, US & UK support)
3. Paul Kagame to Ivan Kagame (Rwanda, US, UK & "international development community" support). 4. Teodoro Obiang Nguema to Teodoro Nguema Obiang (Equatorial Guinea, US support - especially from ExxonMobil and the Oil & Gas Industry).
There are around 840 motor vehicles/1000 people in US. The figures for China were 204 motor vehicles/1000.
In 2019, 21.44 million vehicles were sold in China, compared to 17 million in the US.
If China reaches US levels of car ownership, that's around 80 million vehicles/year.
I think the Chinese Government is a lot more responsible about environmental stewardship than the US Government. In the US, it is about "having as many cars as you want", but Beijing is very deliberate about limiting car sales & is investing heavily in mass transit.
For example, to obtain a license plate to drive an internal combustion engine run vehicle in Shanghai, you'll have to shell out $12,000 - and there's still a queue, but if you purchase an electric vehicle, it is free.
So they are passionate about growing the electric market.
Pakistan was a strategic partner of the US for several decades, but this relationship was driven by the US National Security Community/Pentagon and the Pakistani Military.
India on the other hand, was more closely aligned with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, but towards the late 1980s, some young Indian software professionals created a software industry in Bangalore - and this drew the attention of Silicon Valley.
If you examine Nigeria carefully, there are elements of "India" and "Pakistan" at play with our present relationship with the US.
The Pentagon/National Security Community is in a relationship with Nigerian Military narrowly focused on Islamic Terrorism (Boko Haram).