By Ishaya Ibrahim, News Editor
The easy loans Nigerian government takes from China comes with a deadly clause, a house of representatives panel has said.
The deadly clause in the loan agreement with China which was revealed by Nicholas Ossai, a lawmaker from Delta state, China has the legal rights to all Nigeria’s assets except for its military and diplomatic installations.
The lawmaker made the revelation today, July 29, when Rotimi Amaechi, minister of transportation, appeared before the panel.
The clause was inserted into a $400 million loan agreement which was obtained for Galaxy Backbone, a federal government’s information and communication technology (ICT) agency, in 2018.
The clause reads: “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 the Nigerian Tribune said.
The lawmaker said it was to avoid such a deadly clause that the National Assembly always question some level of agreements being entered into by any ministry with any other nations.
He said such deadly clause ceding Nigeria’s sovereignty to China would affect the generations unborn.
“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.”
