New Railway in Nigeria to Push Up the Country’s Debts to China

Although Chinese loans account for just 11.28% of Nigeria’s external debt stock, a senior advisor to President Buhari warned this weekend that figure is likely to go up if/when the China Exim Bank approves the $5.3 billion loan to build the Ibadan-Kano portion of a massive north-south standard gauge railway project.

Although Tolu Ogunlesi appears to be confident that the loan will come through, there’s still been no public confirmation that’s the case. Federal Government officials have been waiting on a response from Beijing about the status of the loan for several months now.

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by Eric Olander

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