Olusegun Obasanjo, co-chairman of the InterAction Council and former president of Nigeria, said in a recent interview with CGTN's Deji Badmus that he expects the upcoming eighth Ministerial Conference of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) to discuss how Africa could deal with the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change. 

The eighth FOCAC Ministerial Conference will be held in Senegal's capital of Dakar from Monday to Tuesday under the theme of "Deepen China-Africa partnership and promote sustainable development to build a China-Africa community with a shared future in the new era." 

"Our future globally now is so intricately interrelated and woven together that if the future of Africa is uncertain, it has implications for the rest of the world," Obasanjo said, hailing the concept of "shared future." 

"This pandemic knows no boundary, knows no race and knows no political system," he said. "I think that 'shared future' should be spelled out in specific areas (at the FOCAC meeting)." 

He expects the meeting to discuss what Africa, while getting a "helping hand" from China, needs to do so that the continent can be "reasonably self-reliant" in providing healthcare service to address COVID-19. 

"I will also look at what will come out of it from the issue of climate change," said the former Nigerian president. 

Noting that African countries are suffering from climate change, he said: "We have to be talking among ourselves and among the rest of the world, that we cannot, the world cannot afford us going the way they have developed, burning fossil fuels." 

He suggested that China could help African countries develop renewable energy, particularly solar power. 

Obasanjo, 84, was the president of Nigeria from 1999 to 2007. 

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