China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, began a visit to Kenya on Wednesday, where the government has relied on Chinese loans to develop infrastructure but faces criticism over the resulting debt burden.
But President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria on Wednesday defended his government’s decision to source loans from China, saying anyone willing to help Nigeria’s infrastructure is welcome.
According to data from the Debt Management Office, Nigeria has borrowed $2.02 billion as loans from China from 2015 and the country’s debt portfolio from China has risen to $3.40bn as of March 31, 2021.
Speaking during an exclusive interview on Channels Television, President Buhari stated that whenever there was a need to secure more foreign loans, his administration would do so.
He equally erased fears in some quarters that Africa’s most populous nation might be plunged into a debt trap.
“We take that (loans) where it is necessary. I told you now of something, what it is used to be between Lagos and Ibadan alone not to talk of the rest of the country,” he said.
“But we got the Chinese to help us in the rail and the roads, how can we turn that down? If we had turned that down, maybe between Lagos to Ibadan, you will have to walk.
“So the Chinese are welcome, anybody that is prepared to come and help us and our infrastructure to do the roads, the rail and power will be welcomed,” Buhari said.
But the Kenyan foreign ministry, according to Reuters, described the visit by Wang Yi, who is also state councillor, as “historic”. It said security, health, climate change and green technology transfer would be discussed and new bilateral agreements would be signed.
Kenya is the second of three stops on Wang’s African tour, after Eritrea and before Comoros. Eritrea joined Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a long-term plan to fund and build infrastructure linking China to the rest of the world, in November.
China has lent African countries billions of dollars as part of the BRI, including $5 billion for the construction of a modern railway from the Kenyan port of Mombasa.
That model has been evolving, partly under the strain of the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic fallout and partly because of a backlash from African critics against rising debt levels. China is shifting from hard infrastructure loans to efforts to boost trade.
Among critics of Kenya’s reliance on Chinese funding is Kimani Ichung’wah, a ruling party lawmaker who has become a critic of the government.
“It is a debt trap and they should start renegotiating,” he told Reuters before Wang’s visit, complaining that the interest rates on Chinese loans was exorbitant.
Ichung’wah is backing William Ruto, estranged deputy to President Uhuru Kenyatta, to take over the presidency in an election scheduled for August, and said that if Ruto won his government would seek new terms for the loan repayments.
Eritrea, one of the poorest and most isolated nations in the world, is involved in the conflict in Tigray in northern Ethiopia that has destabilised the Horn of Africa region.
Lina Benabdallah, an expert on China-Africa relations at Wake Forest University in the United States, said Wang’s visit signalled Beijing’s interest in restoring stability to the Horn and in improving access to Africa via Eritrea’s Red Sea ports.
Peter Kagwanja, a professor of international relations at the University of Nairobi, said the Comoros stop was also likely linked to trade interests. The Indian Ocean archipelago sits on the rim of a maritime trade route known in China as the Maritime Silk Road and considered strategically important by Beijing, he said.
