We Can Pay The $500 Million China Loan In 20 Years, It Was Jonathan That Signed The Sovereignty Clause Not Us Says Rotimi Amaechi

The Minister of Transportation, Hon Rotimi Amaechi has disclosed that Nigeria has already paid back $96 million out of the $500 million loan the country borrowed from China for the construction of railways.

He insisted that the Nigerian government had the capability to pay back the loans collected within the stipulated period of twenty years.

Amaechi stated this at the weekend when he appeared on a live television programme (Democracy Today) aired on AIT in Abuja.

He said China was the only country given out loans with a low interest rate of 2.8 per cent as no country in the world would give out a loan without a guarantee to pay back such loans.

“The trade agreement between Nigeria and China: The first thing is that the ministry of transport doesn’t take loan, everything about loan is directed to the ministry of finance, so I couldn’t have signed any loan because I don’t take loan. What I signed is what is called commercial contract, which is contract between the Federal Government and CCECC as a contractor, the contract between Nigeria and China is usually signed by the ministry of finance.

“Whether is the ministry of finance that signed it or the ministry of transportation, the issue is that nobody will give you loan free of charge, there must be an agreement and such agreement must contain some terms, that doesn’t mean that you are signing away the sovereignty of the country, no country will sign out its sovereignty.


“We are paying the loans. In the same National Assembly sitting, they were told that the 500million dollars loan, we have paid 96 million dollars already, Nigeria is already paying and the 500 million dollars was not taking by us, it was taken by President Goodluck Jonathan in his term and that clause was there.

“Nigeria has the capacity to pay back for the period of 20 years at 2.8 percent, which country will give you that loan? secondly, these loans are not given to us, they are paid directly to the contractors, once they sign that the job has been done, they pay the contractors and that has never happened before and this project are in place, are they trying to rubbish the fact that there is a railway from Abuja-Kaduna?


Reacting to fears by Nigerians that the country is being sold out to China because of the loans, Amaechi said ” when we stop collecting the loans, then we stop developing because there was no money by the time we came into government, by the time we came the money has been blown away,” he said.

Amaechi further said that the sovereign guarantee and sovereign immunity clause raised by the National Assembly was just a term used to ensure that loans collected were paid back and in the case of default, only the assets constructed with such a loan would be taken back.

According to a statement made available to newsmen by Mrs Taiye Elebiyo, Amaechi said commercial banks would not give anybody a loan without an asset that can be used to pay back the loan collected, same with the Chinese loan or any other loan in the world.

According to him “What you do is you give a sovereign guarantee and that guarantee is the immunity clause they are talking about. When we say I give you a sovereign guarantee and we get immunity clause, the immunity clause is that if tomorrow am not able to pay you and you come to collect the items that we have agreed upon, that these are items that am putting down as guarantee, I can waive my immunity and say no you can’t touch it am sovereign country.

” So, they are saying if you are not able to pay, don’t stop us from taking back those items that will make us recover our funds, so is China our father that will give us money for free? It is a standard clause in every agreement whether is America we signed it with, whether is Britain, any country would want to know that they can recover their money.



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