$400m Loan: How Buhari’s Govt Sold Nigeria To China, Reps Kick

The House of Representatives on Tuesday raised alarm over lethal clauses in Article 8(1) of the commercial loan agreement signed between Nigeria and Export-Import Bank of China which allegedly “wills the sovereignty of Nigeria” in the $400 million loan for the Nigeria National Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Infrastructure Backbone Phase II Project, signed in 2018.

The clause described as “lethal” by the panel is in article 8(1) of the commercial loan agreement between Nigeria and Export-Import Bank of China.

The $400 million loan was obtained for Galaxy Backbone, federal government’s information and communication technology (ICT) agency, in 2018.

The loan agreement came to light at an investigative hearing conducted by the house committee on treaties and agreements chaired by Nicholas Ossai, a lawmaker from Delta state, when Rotimi Amaechi, minister of transportation, appeared before the panel.

“The borrower (Nigeria) hereby irrevocably waives any immunity on the grounds of sovereign or otherwise for itself or its property in connection with any arbitration proceeding pursuant to Article 8(5), thereof with the enforcement of any arbitral award pursuant thereto, except for the military assets and diplomatic assets,” the clause as reported by Tribune read.

The chairman of the committee also said there are agreements signed by the ministry of communications and digital economy where the country’s sovereignty will be breached if it defaults in the agreements.

“When the national assembly reacts in this manner, to question some level of agreements being entered into by any ministry of this country with any other nation, we have every right to question that because anything that is going to happen will happen to our generations unborn. Whether we get it from China or not is immaterial,” Ossai said.

“The most important thing is that we must save and protect our people as regards agreements, because most of the agreements that have been signed, the national assembly has no knowledge.

“Even the details embedded in those agreements are not forwarded to you when demanding counterpart funding.

“You don’t have the details, clause by clause, in line with the Act that established DMO. We need to know those details even before going to sign such agreements. But those details are not provided to the parliament.

“So, we have the right to question them.”

The house treaties committee summoned Isa Pantami, communications minister; Zainab Ahmed, finance minister, and Patience Oniha, director-general of the Debt Management Office (DMO), to appear before it on August 17.

Nigeria is currently taking legal steps to escape a $9 billion judgment debt awarded against the country by a UK court over the Process and Industrial Development (P&ID) deal.

In a related development, Ossai during the investigation into various railway contract agreements signed between Nigeria and CCECC on the modernisation of railway projects demanded details of the agreements signed on the construction of various railway lines including Abuja-Kaduna, Lagos-Ibadan and Lagos-Kano rail projects.

According to Debt Management Office (DMO), as at March 31, 2020, a total of $96.15 million had been paid on the loan, leaving a balance of $403.85 million as outstanding, while the interest has been paid based on semi-annually on reducing balance basis, with 30 years maturity date (leaving 10 years pay-off window).

The chairman, who expressed concern over the conflicting positions between the Director (Legal) in the Ministry of Finance, Budget & National Planning, Mr Gabriel Christopher, warned the minister against blackmailing the Parliament.

He said: “You are trying to blackmail this committee. You are trying to pit this committee against Nigerians,” adding that there was the need to investigate the “variations on interest rates,” which he described as “an aberration.”

“We are not saying because the money is not paid directly to people in this country. We have seen the agreement. We have also seen a clause where sovereignty is waived if we default. We have seen it in the document. It is here in the document where the sovereignty of our country is waived and we believe that the particular clause is not part of what they brought to the National Assembly to approve.

“No National Assembly member will look at that clause and approve such. In your own way, you might be right with what you are doing to defend this country when reaching and signing these agreements. Others might not be so. So, we must take a critical look at them one by one. This committee had not been functioning in the National Assembly before but now, the committee has started functioning, and we must use this committee to defend Nigerians,” he emphasised.