BEIJING: The Nigerian Embassy lies in Beijing’s Sanlitun, an area in Chaoyang District popular among expats with a large number of embassies. Ambassador Baba Ahmad Jidda’s office is on the second floor. If you ask him to show you one of the fancy things he keeps, he will probably show you something his wife bought for him – a special Chinese plant.
“My wife brought it to my office. She said this one brings you a lot of fortune, a lot of money. Chinese Bank of China money will come to this, the Export and Import Bank money will come, so I send it to Nigeria for infrastructure development,” Jidda said.
Jidda took up his current post in September 2017.
At the beginning of the year, he went back to Nigeria for the Christmas holiday. When Wuhan was struck by COVID-19, he decided to rush back to Beijing.
“China is our second home. So I discussed with my wife, and said we cannot be away from China during the difficult time of China. And in any case, there were so many Nigerians in China, especially students.
So there is a need for me to go back, as a captain of the ship to ensure we sink or swim with China. So I returned to Beijing with my wife. And everybody was surprised to see us, because the airport was empty, very few people. Few immigration officers were even there. It was like there was nobody,” Jidda recalled.
“We have 75 Nigerians in Wuhan, 65 of them were students, 10 are other Nigerians. I told them ‘please stay put. I assure you that things will be good.’ So we sent them support, and the government did more than we did to support the students and other Nigerians. I made a press conference, a press release, urging all Nigerians to stay in China, assuring them that sooner or later China will do something about the COVID-19. Finally, I’ve been vindicated that China contained the virus. In the whole world today, China is the safest.
Therefore I feel very proud that I have taken that bold decision to come back to China when everybody was running out of China,” he said.
– The Daily Mail-Global Times News exchange item
