APC, PDP in a heated argument over $2.4bn Chinese loans, others

The two major political parties in Nigeria, the All Progressives Congress APC and the opposition Peoples Democratic Party PDP, on Monday, engaged in a serious altercation over the alleged failure of the PDP to account for loans amounting to over $2.4bn received by two previous administrations and used for failed projects.

The ruling APC made the comment in a statement titled, ‘PDP should account for failed $460m Abuja CCTV project, $2bn China loan – APC’, by its National Publicity Secretary, Yekini Nabena.

According to Nabena, the statement issued by the Atiku Media Office on the standard sovereign guarantee and sovereign immunity clause embedded in Nigeria’s loan agreements with China to fund the ongoing national railway project “can be best described as un-researched, unintelligent and pedestrian.”

He said, “As the Minister for Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, has explained, the guarantee/clause in the loan deals is standard irrespective of the country granting the loan.

“Perhaps, Atiku and the Peoples Democratic Party could redirect their energies to explaining to Nigerians the status of the failed $460m Abuja Closed-Circuit Television contract awarded in August 2010 by the immediate past PDP administration.

“Also, they should explain the over $2bn China loan the PDP administration took between 2010 and 2013 alone; $16bn spent on power with no electricity; fuel subsidy rackets; and counter-insurgency funds that were diverted and shared to political cronies, among other shocking heists.”

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PDP fired back in a statement titled, ‘PDP berates APC for defending the mortgaging of Nigeria’s sovereignty’, signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, “The attempt by the APC to trivialize the mortgaging of the nation by raising frivolous allegations against the PDP validates the APC’s complicity in the pawning of our country to foreign interests.

“The APC’s jaundiced reaction to the attempt to send future generation of Nigerians to China on slavery shows that the APC is anti-people and has no remorse for the wrongdoing of its leaders and government.

“Our party takes exception to the purported challenge by the APC and we counsel the APC to first give account of the N800bn it claimed to have recovered, as Nigerians have regrettably come to discover that the APC thrives on fraud and corruption.”