Photo- Nigeria's Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu

By Temitope Ponle

The Federal Government has said it is working with the Indian Government to access $100 million concessional loan to develop Nigeria’s rural broadband connectivity.

The Minister of Communications, Mr Adebayo Shittu, said unveiled at the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) Day held in Abuja on Thursday night.

Shittu said that the loan to be accessed would be part of India’s 10 billion-dollar concessional loans to African countries for the implementation of projects of their national priority.

The minister said that the rural broadband connectivity in India “inspired” his application for the 100 million dollar-loan for the project.

“Nigeria must be prepared take advantage of the available opportunities, one of which is in the securing of credit line for the development of rural backbone infrastructure.

“In India, as expansive as the country is, every area has sufficient broadband connectivity; everybody has access to online connectivity.

“This is the opposite in Nigeria. We have barely exceeded the 30 per cent connectivity rate.

“However, with this initiative, I believe within the next two months, we will have the opportunity of getting a credit line of $100m from India to develop rural infrastructure, such that without electricity, telecoms masts can function, as masts to be constructed via the credit line funding will be renewable based – that is solar-based. “

He explained that Indian companies would be the installers of the equipment “because it is their technology that we will use the credit line to acquire”.

Shittu, however, said the timeline for the implementation of the project was yet to be determined.

He further added that the return of the loan would be “ironed out” by the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Budget and National Planning.

In his response, the Indian High Commissioner to Nigeria, Mr Abhay Thakur told newsmen that the high commission had received a written project report from Nigeria and would examine it.

“We (Nigeria and India) are working very closely on the rural broadband network project.

“India is deeply interested because we genuinely have a lot of expertise in the area of broadband network building, and reach to (the Indian) masses.

“We will examine the written report, and I am sure very soon, we will be in a position to tender out the project under the India Development Assistance, which is a very attractive soft loan funding for Nigeria.”

Thakur also said the pilot phase of the project, if considered, would start in Oyo and would be further carried out in the other 36 states.

He further expressed optimism that the project would lead to other spin-off projects in the areas of IT trainings and e-governance to rural populations.
“This is something India has achieved, and hope to cooperate on with Nigeria with the support of the Nigerian government.”

Speaking on the ITEC Day, the high commissioner said that 315 training slots in the ITEC short-term programme had been made available for Nigeria in 2019.
He explained that this included 100 training slots under the India Africa Forum Summit and 20 scholarships for undergraduate, post-graduate and higher courses.

He said the high commission also covered Benin, Cameroon and Chad in addition to Nigeria.

“This year we are offering 50 ITEC slots and five degree scholarships to Benin; 63 ITEC slots and eight degree scholarships to Cameroon; 20 ITEC slots and eight degree scholarships to Chad, and five ITEC slots to ECOWAS.

“We give full details of these slots because we want every opportunity to be utilised; we will like to see 100 per cent utilisation, so we can increase the slots in the next year.

“We are open to nominations from all Nigerian organisations.”

At the third Africa-Indian Forum in 2015, the Indian Government announced 50,000 scholarships for African students in India.

Since the second forum in 2011, more than 24,000 scholarships across 300 training courses conducted at 60 training institutions in India were utilised by African nationals in diverse areas.

The ITEC programme instituted in Sept. 1964 is a flagship programme of the Indian government’s capacity building efforts...

More:
http://www.insiderpostonline.com/news/more-debt-for-nigeria-as-fg-seeks-100-million-broadband-loan-from-india/

Yahoo Yahoo government

Thieves

I welcome it. PDP spent over one trillion on electricity and we all see the result, no light in Nigeria.
If it was a PDP government, the loan will be 1 billion, 900 million will go to individual pockets and 100 million for the job.
Ndigbo love you Baba 4+4 .

They can't hide the fact that atiku is chronically corrupt. Obj(his boss) was even marvelled when he realized how corrupt atiku was. It's in the blood, obi can't tell him not to steal or sell Nigeria's asset. Obi can't check him.

They've borrowed from almost all the countries of the world still the country is in a sorry state .

APC is the most useless political party in Nigeria history

Very soon is Ghana they will start borrowing from.

Wuru wuru government.

A country Nigeria just displaced to take the ignomy position of the world's poverty headquarters?

Guess they said FIRS have recorded an all time high revenue of #5.3T last year while Customs, JAMB made so much revenue not even talking about the spurious IGRs from the so called taxations, MDAs, Recovered/Relooted funds?

So what is the clueless government borrowing for?
The moribund APC regime is still mortgaging Nigeria into more chronic indebtedness.

$1bn from Brazil plus this


Okay

we design logos, business cards, pitch deck, banners, book cover etc

tsephanyah:
They can't hide the fact that atiku is chronically corrupt. Obj(his boss) was even marvelled when he realized how corrupt atiku was. It's in the blood, obi can't tell him not to steal or sell Nigeria's asset. Obi can't check him.

naijaguy123456:
I welcome it. PDP spent over one trillion on electricity and we all seethe result, no light yet. Ndigbo love you Baba 4+4 .

Ur country is now borrowing from India!!!
A country without toilets.
Shame on APC

Where do we go from here? Our future was sold now they are selling the future of our children.

g.

Advanced politics fraud.
You can't be caught
You payback in future..


10 years later**
Indians Everywhere..
Nonsense and

Debts channeled to developmental projects is a good idea so long as the pricing is a good bargain and that the project is delivered as scheduled. That was how America developed. If PDP had done that for the 16 years they wasted instead of borrowing to pay salaries, we could have been better off by now.

Buharis destiny is to bankrupt Nigeria

Say no to Buhari and APc

Buhari has nothing upstairs to offer except blames... Traveling and borrowing money

Buhari will turn us to Zimbabwe slowly

T

Funny country

What an irony! After trolling Indians about lack of toilet facilities you now want some shitty loans? I must be the first to break this news to my Indian wife.

India please don't give them oooooo, apc wanna use it for vote buying.

Either way, buhari is a collective task.

The cabals is behind this loan.

Moderator, Kadriah Ahmed, cautioned Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, asking him to allow President Muhammadu Buhari express his personal view on the authenticity of a video depicting Governor Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano State allegedly receiving bribes from a contractor.

Buhari is finished.

EOD#

tsephanyah:
They can't hide the fact that atiku is chronically corrupt. Obj(his boss) was even marvelled when he realized how corrupt atiku was. It's in the blood, obi can't tell him not to steal or sell Nigeria's asset. Obi can't check him.

The first thing you ought to do when you wake up is to use your drugs....

Oo goo

GOD COME AND SAVE US OO
BUHARI WANT TO MORTGAGE OUR FUTURE
THE LIFELESS ONE EAN FINISH US WITH DEBT OO
SPIT ON APC AND THEIR ZOMBIES
ESPECIALLY THAT BBQ GUY
THAT ONE ZOMBIE DON ENTER PHD LEVEL

naijaguy123456:
I welcome it. PDP spent over one trillion on electricity and we all seethe result, no light yet. Ndigbo love you Baba 4+4 .

Illiteracy is a disease

who pays back these loans?

Even from poverty india with their 80's technology...shameless government

We don't have a competent Government to negotiate any contract, loan or project implementation right now

Indians will only benefit themselves here at peanuts and stupidly earn title as, Foreign direct Investor.

Any loan, contract hastily being signed at this time is at your own peril

A new Government is coming, Nigeria will get working Again.

Na India now?

Still mortgaging Nigeria into chronic indebtedness.


You stop mortgaging your self. There is country that do went borrow.

UAE that most of you run to borrowed from Qatar and one other country to build infrastructure before it becomes heaven on Earth.
Even US is the highest debtor country in the world. So keep kwayet.

Buhari where are u taking us to? Please stop let us come down