₦airaland Forum

A former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Prof. Bolaji Akinyemi, has urged President Bola Tinubu not to get carried away with free access to loans from the Chinese government without considering its implications on the economy.

The professor of political science gave the warning when he was featured as a guest on Sunday’s Channels Television’s Politics Today.

His caution comes two days after the President described his official engagements with President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang at the 2024 Summit of the China-Africa Cooperation in Beijing, China’s capital as a ‘very good and successful.

Nigeria is indebted to five global powers namely China, France, Japan, India, and Germany.

According to the Debt Management Office, China is Nigeria’s largest creditor.

The country owes China about 84 per cent of the entire $5b debt, which amounts to over $4b.

As of a few years ago, some loans have payment plans of up to 20 years with some moratoriums of up to seven years.

But Akinyemi insisted that Tinubu cannot afford to repeat the mistakes of successive administrations in the country.

He said, “Of course, we should be very careful. That is where I was going. But don’t isolate the focus on China. There are also debts we owe the United States and some medium-power countries. What we need to do is to be careful about two things. One, we shouldn’t default on that debt.

“A month before this African-Chinese summit, Nigerian sovereign goods were being impounded all around the world at the instigation of a Chinese company. So, China is not going to serve us anything on global order. We have to be careful that we fulfill our side of the bargain, not only with China but with all the other countries that we may be doing deals with.

“It is a shame on our status and pride for our sovereign goods to be seized because we are defaulting from fulfilling our part of the agreements. This leads me to the second factor. Nigeria, as a sovereign country, needs to keep an eye on the types and content of agreements being signed by what we call the sub-nationals.”

Continuing, the diplomat affirmed that states are not recognized as entities in the international global system.

He also warned against placing corrupt persons in charge of toll collections of the projects facilitated with such debts.

“Nigeria is the sovereign entity. Therefore, it is Nigeria that will be held responsible if states default in fulfilling agreements signed and if governors come to the scene and decide to cancel agreements signed by their predecessors. We should get out of that mental thinking. The emperors in Nigeria are not the president in Abuja.

“The emperors in the political system are the governors because nobody controls them. They have the assemblies and the judges in their pockets. And yet, internationally, it is Nigeria that gets into problems. So, those are the two factors. There is a third one, which is our behaviour, our DNA. Part of the problem we are starting to run into in terms of the infrastructure projects with the Chinese is that Nigerians who are supposed to be collecting money for trips (tolls) are pocketing the money.

“They bring their own POS. And if the passengers go through the right system, get the tickets directly, and when the conductor says ‘Oh, there is something wrong with what you bought. You have to buy another ticket.’ That one is going into its pocket. How are we to refund the loan on those infrastructural projects when we have corrupt Nigerians? We tend to focus on corruption at the very top.”

MadPolitician:
The Chinese are not our problem.The only condition that the Chinese usually put on their loans is to demand that their companies help with any construction works. That is reasonably fair. The people strangulating Nigeria economically, are the world bank and the IMF. These two organisations are responsible for messing up the country with the demonicconditionsattached to all the billions they loan to corrupt regimes.

Right from babangidas structural adjustment programmes, to obasanjos privatisations that handed lucrative government agencies over to western proxies, to tinubus war on subsidies and floatation of the naira, all IMF/World Bank conditions for their loans have proven to be nothing but slow poison. These are conditions well programmed to help destroy the economies of developing nations.

Standing5:
Mad Politician indeed. ^^^

The article talks about low level staffs pocketting govt revenue or tolls on projects that have loan repayment schedule waiting to be fulfilled. Thats a typical Nigerian showing true colors. I also blame whoever approaches China on behalf of a whole nation to execute projects in constituencies that cannot repay loans because they believe they won a war of resources and should never have to pay for public utilities frim their pockets.
As for the state governors signing sub national agreements and therefore tying Nigeria as a whole into messed up agreements, thats perfectly down to a structure that empowers states to spend freely but never asks what they do or motivates them to be productive or earn. I watched as El Rufai plundered Kaduna resources for his religion and then became the chief advocate for subsidy removal just to to keep states getting huge allocations and running. Why must economic units that spend unquestioned be created? No appraisals or submission to a higher authority. The structure we run was put in place to allow resources cornered by Hausa Fulani dominated FG in addition to Igbo and Yoruba to spend unquestioned, SS resources and this has led to culture of recklessness where the winners or emperors(governors) take it all. Two of the last four heads of Nigeria are were state governor at some point in their career and their tenure has turned out worse than those with no state governing experiences. Look at the national embarassment Ogun state just caused us. What do they have thousands of aides for? They are just a burdensome extention of the FG that brings nothing back to the FG save the cornered resources of the conquered regions. Before now the narrative was that the money other resources can bring in is too small compared to oil. But seeing that oil revenue has been oversubscribed by mouths waiting to be fed and most heavily, by debts to be repaid, the gap has been drastically closed, so why isnt anyone asking about gold and other resources?

treesun:
https://punchng.com/4m-debt-why-tinubu-should-be-careful-about-chinese-loans-ex-minister/

treesun:
https://punchng.com/4m-debt-why-tinubu-should-be-careful-about-chinese-loans-ex-minister/

MadPolitician:
The Chinese are not our problem.The only condition that the Chinese usually put on their loans is to demand that their companies help with any construction works. That is reasonably fair. The people strangulating Nigeria economically, are the world bank and the IMF. These two organisations are responsible for messing up the country with the demonicconditionsattached to all the billions they loan to corrupt regimes.

Right from babangidas structural adjustment programmes, to obasanjos privatisations that handed lucrative government agencies over to western proxies, to tinubus war on subsidies and floatation of the naira, all IMF/World Bank conditions for their loans have proven to be nothing but slow poison. These are conditions well programmed to help destroy the economies of developing nations.

MadPolitician:
The Chinese are not our problem.The only condition that the Chinese usually put on their loans is to demand that their companies help with any construction works. That is reasonably fair. The people strangulating Nigeria economically, are the world bank and the IMF. These two organisations are responsible for messing up the country with the demonicconditionsattached to all the billions they loan to corrupt regimes.

Right from babangidas structural adjustment programmes, to obasanjos privatisations that handed lucrative government agencies over to western proxies, to tinubus war on subsidies and floatation of the naira, all IMF/World Bank conditions for their loans have proven to be nothing but slow poison. These are conditions well programmed to help destroy the economies of developing nations.

lexy2014:
Are you saying that world bank and imf came all the way from the US to Nigeria to ruin Nigeria?

Standing5:
Mad Politician indeed. ^^^

The article talks about low level staffs pocketting govt revenue or tolls on projects that have loan repayment schedule waiting to be fulfilled. Thats a typical Nigerian showing true colors. I also blame whoever approaches China on behalf of a whole nation to execute projects in constituencies that cannot repay loans because they believe they won a war of resources and should never have to pay for public utilities frim their pockets.
As for the state governors signing sub national agreements and therefore tying Nigeria as a whole into messed up agreements, thats perfectly down to a structure that empowers states to spend freely but never asks what they do or motivates them to be productive or earn. I watched as El Rufai plundered Kaduna resources for his religion and then became the chief advocate for subsidy removal just to to keep states getting huge allocations and running. Why must economic units that spend unquestioned be created? No appraisals or submission to a higher authority. The structure we run was put in place to allow resources cornered by Hausa Fulani dominated FG in addition to Igbo and Yoruba to spend unquestioned, SS resources and this has led to culture of recklessness where the winners or emperors(governors) take it all. Two of the last four heads of Nigeria are were state governor at some point in their career and their tenure has turned out worse than those with no state governing experiences. Look at the national embarassment Ogun state just caused us. What do they have thousands of aides for? They are just a burdensome extention of the FG that brings nothing back to the FG save the cornered resources of the conquered regions. Before now the narrative was that the money other resources can bring in is too small compared to oil. But seeing that oil revenue has been oversubscribed by mouths waiting to be fed and most heavily, by debts to be repaid, the gap has been drastically closed, so why isnt anyone asking about gold and other resources?

TheTundeMuniru:
The Chinese cannot be trusted

MadPolitician:
I trust the Chinese

TheTundeMuniru:
Any Mad Politician can't be trusted.