“China is about to take everything from Zambia. They have taken over our economy through these criminal debts…,” said James Lukuku, a demonstrator against China’s drive to annex his country through “unconditional” lending.

In a supposed attempt to help Zambia drive speedy economic growth, China was busy building airports, roads, factories and police stations with the boom largely funded by Chinese loans, to the tune of US$10 billion.

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Unfortunately, the slump in the price of copper, Zambia’s leading export, has led to fears that Lusaka might struggle to service its external debt. At the moment, the country is on the verge of a debt crisis that stemmed from heavy borrowing, and partly, irresponsible spending.

Earlier in September, President Xi of China pledged to commit $60 billion credit facilities to African countries. The breakdown includes $20 billion in credit lines, $15 billion in grants, interest-free loans and concessional loans, and $10 billion in investment financing.

This support will come in the form of government assistance and investment. Despite the criticism of the funds by analysts who opine that it could lead to unsustainable debts, Nigeria’s government is shamelessly embracing the offer on all fronts.

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Right from the start of his administration, President Buhari has shown interest in the support of Chinese government in varying ways. We began with some $500 million for a Chinese-standard railway line spanning Abuja to Kaduna. By the time of his trip to China towards mid-2016, Nigeria was already considered to be in a development relationship with China, giving way to new talks for a $6 billion loan.

China is taking advantage of our increasing dependence on loans as a fallback position in view of dwindling oil revenues and lack of economic expansion to meet a large infrastructure gap. The Chinese government even promised to boost their importation of Nigeria’s fuel.

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While all these sound like calls for a celebration, Nigeria should be wary of a rich country trying to buy us into their coven of loyalists. The $6 billion in 2016 was said to be for infrastructural development, but subjecting us to breaking ties with Taiwan.

There was also an agreement to establish one of the biggest granite and processing plants in Africa. In this regard, the Shanghai Machinery Company Limited and Nigeria’s Marble Limited signed an MOU to establish plants for assembling mining equipment and to support capacity-building for the industry. That is simply signing away monopoly of the industry to the Chinese company.

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The Debt Management Office (DMO) disclosed that Nigeria had total indebtedness of $3.22 billion to China, as at the end of 2017. Since then, however, more loans have been negotiated and were being drawn, such as the $3.5 billion facility for the Mambilla Hydro Electricity Power project.

Just like it took over Zambia’s national broadcaster and other major companies in the country, we may find ourselves as a colony of China in just a few years. The federal government needs to review its relationship with the country and put a stop to needless borrowing. With 22% of 2018 budget meant for debt servicing, and the economy growing at an all-time slow pace, Nigeria has no capacity to incur external debts in such manner, if we truly value our sovereignty as a nation.

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