President Bola Tinubu has been cautioned by former Foreign Affairs Minister Prof. Bolaji Akinyemi not to get carried away with unrestricted access to loans from the Chinese government without taking the economy’s effects into account.
The caution was issued by the political science professor during his Sunday appearance as a guest on Politics Today on Channels Television.
His caution comes after the President called his formal meetings with Premier Li Qiang and President Xi Jinping at the 2024 China-Africa Cooperation Summit in Beijing, China’s capital, “very good and successful” two days prior.
Nigeria owes money to China, France, Japan, India, and Germany—the five superpowers.
Nigeria’s biggest creditor, according to the Debt Management Office, is China.
Almost 4 billion dollars, or 84% of the $5 billion debt, is owed by the nation to China.
Some loans had up to 20-year repayment terms as of a few years ago, along with up to seven-year moratoriums.
However, Akinyemi maintained that Tinubu could not afford to make the same mistakes made by the nation’s previous governments.
“Of course, we should be very careful,” he remarked. I was headed in that direction. However, don’t stop concentrating on China. We also owe money to a few medium-power nations and the United States. What we must do is exercise caution in two areas. First, we must not miss payments on the loan.”
“Nigerian sovereign products were being impounded worldwide a month prior to this African-Chinese meeting, at the behest of a Chinese corporation. China will thus not provide us with anything on a global scale. With China as well as any other country we may be doing business with, we must be sure to keep up our end of the agreement.”
“The seizure of our sovereign goods due to our failure to meet our obligations under the accords is a disgrace to our status and pride. This brings me to my second point. Nigeria must monitor the kinds and contents of the agreements that those referred to as “sub-nationals” sign as a sovereign nation.”
The ambassador went on to say that in the world global system, nations are not recognized as entities.
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Additionally, he issued a warning against putting dishonest people in charge of collecting tolls for projects that are funded by these kinds of debts.
“The sovereign entity is Nigeria.” Therefore, if states fail to uphold agreed agreements or if governors intervene and choose to revoke commitments made by their predecessors, Nigeria would be held accountable. We ought to break free from that way of thinking.”
“The president of Abuja is not the emperors of Nigeria. Because they are unaccountable, the governors in the political system are the emperors. The judges and the assemblies are in their pockets. However, Nigeria faces difficulties on a global scale. These two factors are what they are. The third is our behavior, our genetic makeup.”
“Nigerians who are meant to be collecting money for trips (tolls) are pocketing the money, which is part of the issue we are starting to run into with the Chinese infrastructure projects.”
“They carry a POS with them. If travelers follow the correct procedures and obtain their tickets directly, the conductor may inform them if there is a problem with their purchase. You must purchase an additional ticket. It is going to put that one in its pocket. Because there are dishonest Nigerians among us, how are we going to repay the money for those infrastructure projects? We frequently concentrate on high-level corruption.”
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