China And Africa: The New Colonialism
By Sylvanus EkpoChina and Africa are in a tango. In the last 18 years, the Chinese government has become the second biggest economy in the world after the United States. During these years, it has through the China Exim Bank, doled out jumbo loans to African countries such as Angola, Kenya, Nigeria, Zambia, Zimbabwe, etc. For Nigeria, since 2002, the country has received about 17 loans to find projects in the transportation, ICT, Energy, Agriculture and Water Resources.
For instance, in 2002, Nigeria received the sum of $114.89 million for the construction of two 335 MW gas power plants at six per cent interest rate. This loan covered about 65 per cent of the total cost of the project while the country looked to other sources for the balance of 35 per cent.
Between 2006 and 2018, loans collected amounted to $328 million for National ICT Infrastructure Backbone 11 project.
A further loan of $399.50 million was collected to fund the Close Circuit Television (CCTV) project for Lagos and Abuja. Findings by this writer suggest that the project failed to meet the expectations of government and its still not clear what transpired between ZTE and other handlers of the gigantic project.
Besides, a further loan of $325.67 million for 40 parboiled rice processing plants in the country. This project has been shrouded in mystery as the plants were delivered as proposed. To cap it all, loans were also received for the upgrade of Abuja-Makurdi roads.
Recently, China approved a loan of $3.5 billion for Mambilla hydropower project in Taraba State, ostensibly to revive the moribund project which had been lying fallow for 40 years.
Taken together, Nigeria stands as the highest beneficiary of Chinese loans of about $6.5 billion
(#1.9 trillion). Transportation Minister, Rotimi Amaechi, has been sold to the Chinese idea that our needs in the rail sector will be met by these loans. Currently, the Chinese are training a crop of Nigerians on how to manage the rail coaches that were imported into the country; the Chinese are also building a $50 million Transportation University in Daura, Katsina state, the home town of the Nigerian president, Muhammad Buhari. The project is to be built by the China Civil Engineering Construction Company, CCECC.
We venture to say, that 100 years from now, Nigerians and generations unborn, may not be able to repay these jumbo loans.
What Would China Do?
In the case of default in the payment of these loans, it certainly would give the Chinese the leeway, the audacity to enslave us and take over our infrastructure in exchange for the loans we collected. This method of loan recovery has already played out in several African countries. Our national pride, our national economy would be in jeopardy and jobs would be lost.
However, it is the view of this writer that, although loans are needed to spur infrastructure development with low revenue from crude oil sales, in a country gasping for breath in Covid-19 environment, they are a kind of Trojan Horse. Upon default, the Chinese will then move in with their own labour and further pauperize our people in our own land. This is the second colonialism!
Consequently, the national economy of Nigeria along with other sectors will collapse under the weight of a Communist government, playing the pawns from Beijing. In the end, the purposes for which the loans were gotten would be defeated and we would be no better, no nobler, no stronger, no freer of the past . Just like now.
To be continued.
Ekpo a Journalist and Social Commentator writes from Lagos.
