Africa has a great story to tell the world, while China is playing a crucial role with its development, according to H.E. Alhaji Aminu Bashir Wali, mni., Ambassador of Nigeria to China, who spoke to ChinAfrica magazine.

Nonetheless, he admitted that Africa continues to struggle with overcoming the negative after-effects of colonialism. African nations face a rocky path over lack of infrastructure, corruption and underdevelopment, Ambassador Wali said.

He believes Africa is headed in the right direction although numerous problems persist. "To most of us Africans, we are trying to transform ourselves from being an indigenous people that is alien to Western culture," said Wali. "Now we must adapt to what governance is about," that is "something that will evolve. We are Africans."

He insists China is taking the "right approach," by not forcing African nations to be "apologetic," for its style of governance, he said.

He argues that Africa should "evolve," but "at its own pace," which explains his support of China's endorsement of a country's right to their own sovereignty. He's impressed with China's focus on business matters, while Westerners tend to "dictate morality" to Africa.

"China comes to Africa with a win-win situation," said the ambassador who accepts that all entrepreneurs want to make a profit, and the Chinese and Africans talk on the same level. And while believing that China cooperates with Africa to provide soft loans, he holds a different view to skeptics of Sino-African relations who see China exploiting Africa for mining its mineral resources to earn sizable profits that flow back into China while pursuing questionable labor practices.

Wali said that when a Chinese company gets a loan to build railways in Nigeria they even bring in Chinese labor and when the project is completed the Chinese company earns the right to sell train tickets. Sure the company may eventually enjoy a return on investment along with a future stream of revenues, he said, but Nigeria also benefits, because Nigerians can travel by train, which many could never have done before. "Nigeria gets the infrastructure and gets to keep it," he said.

Wali hints that China should invest more into energy projects. Nigeria wants China "to put priority into the power sector, because it's capital intensive and Nigeria doesn't have the funds for those investments."

"Nigeria understands that to boost all sectors of its economy, the nation needs a sufficient and reliable supply of power," said Wali.

Nigeria has tremendous potential to meet growing energy demands, since the Niger Delta region holds an abundant supply of oil reserves in the ground. "All major global oil companies have heavily invested into the Niger Delta region, while oil production has risen to 2.4 million barrels a day."

But Nigeria still plans to reduce its dependency on the domestic oil sector, while promoting all other sectors of the national economy. The ambassador is calling for Nigeria to take greater steps to improve its own agricultural production. He wants Nigerians to study China's mode of development for finding a solution to feed all its citizens.

"China has a population of 1.3 billion with the ability to feed its people," he said. "Nigerians should put a lot of effort to study its agricultural production methods."

However, Wali opened up about some flaws to China's approach to Nigeria's development. He said  that Chinese shopkeepers should not come to Nigeria as starting small shops by the Chinese can be a problem since they compete against the locals.

He contends that Nigerians are very happy when the Chinese make investments to launch and build multi-billion U.S. dollar investments, because Nigeria itself can't afford to finance such projects. But Chinese shops drive away customers from Nigerian-owned stores.

Wali appears pragmatic in regards to the country's diplomatic relations with China. He didn't gloss over deficiencies between the two nations. But he believes they can find solutions to overcome current difficulties that could provide pivotal steps to move Nigeria forward on the path to prosperity. He understands the strategic partnership, but business is business. And "entrepreneurs will only go where they think they can earn a profit," he said.

President Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria has done much to root out corruption in order to attract more foreign direct investment, said Wali.  Nigeria is poised to enjoy strong economic growth. Meanwhile, China is helping Nigeria "evolve." Wali hopes that the world will see China's actions as positive for the greater good.