A front-page story on The Guardian newspaper on Wednesday highlighted renewed worries in Nigeria about the country’s debts to China. 

There was no new information in the story as Chinese lending to Nigeria has remained largely flat over the past year. Instead, it channeled a lot of the pent-up anxieties that many Nigerians have felt over the past year over whether the transportation infrastructure projects financed by Chinese loans are economically viable, the secrecy of Chinese loan contracts, and, yes, again, anxieties over whether the loans will compromise Nigerian sovereignty (an issue that seemingly won’t go away, no matter how many times it’s debunked).