 Welcome back now. The Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Ameji, has blamed the delays in major projects, including railways, on the inability of the Chinese to fund them. Ameji said the federal government has started looking for loans in Europe following the refusal of the Chinese to fund Nigerian project. While speaking to the press, the minister expressed hope that Nigeria could get loans from Europe to a complete existing project. Ameji said the Abuja Itakbe Railway is underway, which will link the existing Itakbe Delta rail line. He said the link, rail, would have been completed, but for a mis-understanding with a Chinese contractor. But joining us to discuss this is Gaspol, a belly and economist and our own, although a foreign affairs analyst. Good evening to you gentlemen. All right, we'll start with Gaspol. Gaspol, good evening to you. Many thanks for staying with us. Let me just put it in a lay sense. Maybe you try and give me some explanation. Over time, Africans generally have been so, so reliant on Asian countries, specifically China for, you know, to build the infrastructure, you know, railway, airport, concessionings and all of that. Right now, the Chinese seem to have some sort of mis-understanding with Nigeria. That's according to the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Ameji. Gaspol, what do we really have on our hands right now? You know, we are looking in the direction of Europe. Is it the right way to go? Well, thank you, first of all, for having me great again to be here. It's very important to start with the fact that Nigeria cannot currently fund its infrastructure needs in terms of infrastructure expenditure. It costs a lot to build critical infrastructure. And as a result, the government has to look for alternative means to infrastructure financing as it were. Also being the fact that, you know, when we've had a roll out of inaction, sorry, coming all to, since 1990, even during the military era, we refused to do the right things at the right time, you know, and all of those problems are powered up, are gravitating into the current of a new crisis that we have right now. So infrastructure must be built going forward. So the government has to look for a very other alternative in financing infrastructure. Secondly, we do not have enough, how would I put it, human capital, in a sense, required to take these intelligent or smart infrastructure projects. So some form of reliance of, all right, will be required to take a few of these things and all of that. Again, speaking to the fact that inactions and bad public leadership has also led us to this point. So we don't have an option than to find other means to infrastructure financing. However, debt is not the only route in as much as debt is not a bad option. It just means that we've not properly probably handled these debt financing options rightly, you know, in terms of borrowing for infrastructure financing and all that. And once you have been able to plug that into the mainstream and also embed a critical mass of your economic agents for productivity on that mainstream, you may not be able to contract all of these borrowings or even infrastructures we are building into good revenue streams for us to be able to pay back and still grow in terms of economic sustainability, productivity-wise, yeah. All right. I like your opening salvo. You mentioned the whole lot of one point. You talked about issues with infrastructure financing. You talked about inaction over the years. But the next question right now would be, you said rightly that and debt is in an issue. It is actually one of one other alternative to financing infrastructures in the country. But then again, as a country, looking at how far we have come over the years with all the borrowings that we have had, would you say that we are really neck deep in debt and are we in way over ahead at the moment? So yes. Two sides to the question. Yes and no, because number one, we are really negative in debt. Looking at our potentials to pay back, looking at overall economic investment returns and all that, we do not have what it takes to service. If you look at the current attention to budget, your debt size, it's almost equal to the capital expenditure size, if not slightly higher. And if you look at that consistently over the years previously, because of time I don't go into numbers, you said that it's been exact same size in terms of debt financing, sorry, debt deficit and the capital expenditure. So it's a call for worry because we haven't been able to restructure the economy into some form of growth financing, bigger revenue prospects, especially from non-oil, by particularly positioning non-oil for export competitiveness and improved business environment as it were. So not having done that has led us to position where we only depend on the oil sector and strangle economic agents on taxes and all of that. So when a very bad position to be able to service our debt and as well as poor debt financing into critical investment vehicles for growth and development right now, we also have a structured public expenditure in such a way that there's high government waste, all right, and you know all that story and all that. Debt financing options or infrastructure financing options are not landing on the critical investment vehicles, all right, which makes it a bit difficult for us to service debt going forward in the long term, looking at where we are as a nation, our budgets are revenue and capacity productivity wise. On the flip side, most advanced countries have grown, thrived and developed over time again on debt vehicles. So as I said, debt is not necessarily bad in the sense of things. Advanced countries have larger debt profiles, larger budget deficit profiles, and when you have budget deficit, the first financial option would be to borrow. But the question is not if you're borrowing, the question is what you're borrowing for, and what base do you have in terms of economic fundamentals, all right, to plow those financing to the right places, and then over time sustainably, you can pay back your debt as well as scale economic productivity and growth for a critical mass of your own people. Don't forget, China would not give you debt for debt purpose, all right, they would find some areas within the agreement to plow the machinery or the technical know-how around that infrastructure development for the advantage, not for your own advantage. So we need to find critical ways to not just engage infrastructure finance or debt financing, but ensure that a critical mass of human capital are inclusive in that process of development with debt financing funding, until we can do that correctly over time, we may not find any results as it were. All right, so gospel, so invariably what you are saying is that we have a whole lot of big issue when it comes to servicing our debt. So if I put it differently, so it's not an issue of geography moving away from Asia or China to maybe Europe to source for this debt, because over time it is still boiled down to the fact that we are taking these loans and we don't have the capacity to service them. Yes, definitely, but then again, if we could have done, I mean, if there was a way, if there was a way we can finance most of our development aspirations without necessarily seeking for aid or for help, all right, that would have been the best shot right here. People talk about dead aid and the fact that Nigeria can be self-sufficient and all that, I agree to that phenomenon, that's what I thought, but the truth is no matter how much we preach that, that is not a reality that would be happening anytime soon. Why can't it happen anytime soon? I mean, number one, we have political correctness about political will, first of all, so the government doesn't have the will, the political ideology, the culture that drives for development aspirations does not look within, all right, to develop and bring that value on a self-reliance basis, all right. The culture has been built over looking outside than looking internally on what you can do. It's first the cultural problem, then it scales upwards to the ideology around the political class and the willingness and all that, so there is more drive to be more politically correct than politically channeled or reeled to do the right thing, even when the will is there, is the ability there, I mean, you may be willing, but you're not able, all right, so the government may be willing, but are they able, being able to talk about capacity, all right, being able to talk about financing and all of that, then when you're able, how are you able to position yourselves to unlock economic potential, so it's an engagement that thrives on three important legs, you know, and all that can happen, we may not be able to unlock our self-reliance capability, but that's why I said in the next 10 years it may not happen, so the only option is to be able to look for where you can borrow from and all that, so this is not to endorse boring or aid, but the truth is, at the end of the day, Africa or Nigeria to last would be dependent on that, you know, especially being the cultural elements that drive what we do as a people and as a nation, so I mean, so that's what I see, it's a lot, it's not a function of if it's Europe or China, it's a function of who we are and the culture we've deployed or developed around developmental financing, so it is really boring not give you monies on a platter of gold, not the terms and conditions, I was going to say that because I was going to really ask Eva the loans that we've had over time from Asia, if it has actually done us more harm, then good, judging by the terms and conditionalities that they usually, you know, bring on the table most of the times. Well, I think it has done us more harm than good in my own opinion, but it's a case of poor economics, I mean, you're gaining some advantage in the short term by getting infrastructure fixed, but to a large extent, you know, within the rock, within the core of those agreements are major capital flight issues, are major terms and conditions around human capital, who does what and why and what is the positioning of the Nigerian people within that growth engine or that infrastructure development engine, take for instance, you go on the infrastructure side, you see the average Nigerian using shovels, all right, to pick the stones to dig up the sand, while you see the main technical bit handled by, you know, the Chinese and all of the lines, right, they don't just finance this, they also use the organizations or their construction companies to build these things. All right, so in terms of mainstream territorial takeover, all right, you can see that play in that, in the structure of how infrastructure, sorry, in how infrastructure has been developed and scaled for use over time. Then again, I mean, just to bust the bubble, in some of these agreements, you also have clauses that says that, okay, for the next 15 to 30 years, it will be maintained by A and B and C organization in A and B and C country. You have those clauses there. So Nigerians are not positioned within the grand scheme of things to drive growth and development. So capital flight is at the core, human capital is at the core, all right, and sustainability in terms of growth financing is also at the core. So you keep paying these debts and your people are not the ones driving the engine. So it's not really a win-win in the sense, all right, it's difficult to get a win-win in those kind of conversations as it's where. So we need to do more for ourselves by being self-reliant. All right. Yes, I want us to just conclude on this aspect of himself reliant, because you have said that it might be impossible over time, because you said that we might still have to resort to borrowing. I'm even more concerned again because the federal government is giving targets now. Senate, right, is giving targets to revenue-generating agencies, three trillion naira annually. That's an issue. Just last month, Niger could not even meet up with OPEC quarter for January. So with all of this right now, where can we really generate the revenue internally? Because you said that we don't really have the border language to really want to do all of that. Yeah, it's a very beautiful question because, I mean, that has been my headline thought in other conversations in the media all through the week. The government has a serious revenue crisis. And for a government like ours, it needs to find a way to solve that problem, all right. But you know when you refuse to do the right things at the right time, and the problem becomes more complex, you will be pressured on all fronts to do anything you can do to get your way out. And all of those actions get to hurt the economy back and forth again. Over the years, MDAs have been positioned to get more from people than to help them become more, all right. I mean, we're just seeing it now in the news. It's just being made for one in the Senate. We're just talking about it now, but it has always been the case, all right. Average SME works to nap back to get a certification. It's more about what they can get from you than what institutions they have in place to help you become a thriving business, all right. So we have a revenue crisis, but our approach is more of, you know, trying to strangle economic agents to get more from them. So we need to switch that conversation, all right, to inspire tax compliance, growth and growth, I mean revenue mobilization. We then need to enable support, all right, come from the software element. What are you bringing on the table to help people become better? When they become better at what they do, then you are positioned as a government to earn more taxes from them, all right, and then you build the necessary structures and processes to empower more known oil sector-based SMEs, so that when they become thriving, they can employ more people, they can give back in more taxes, they can produce goods and services that are competitive on the global level. That way, you cannot end foreign receipts from that window and not just the oil sector window. So there's a lot more we need to do than trying to strangle people or economic agents into paying more revenue and do not forget the current MDA machinery is actually analog driven. So you're trying to use an analog, imagine trying to use an analog computer in this digital age and you're asking yourself why it's not delivering revenue for me, all right. So the MDAs are structured capacity and decisionally wise as analog institutions to get more value from economic agents. So it's a dead-end arrival model that would come back to the economy. That's what I'm saying. All right, thank you so much, I'm gospel. It is always a delight to talk to you about all of these economic issues. The whole analog and digital example that you gave was actually a very funny one. Thank you so much, gospel, once again. Thank you. It's always a pleasure. All right, it is two plus politics. I would take a quick break. When I return, I'll be giving you my take. Ninjas answers mass action in October 2020 and the subsequent security force crackdown led to promises that those affected would see justice. But events since then questioned the government's commitment to genuine police reform. The Niger police force continues to inflict extortion and brutality on innocent citizens and recent decisions on the report of the judicial panel set up by Lagos state government to investigate police abuses have dampened public expectations. Now, the process of ensuring accountability must start from within the Niger police force itself. Measure should go beyond the usual rhetoric without undermining ongoing reform efforts by external stakeholders. And of course, therefore, revenue, Niger should just switch to the convention and try to get more people into the tax net, because by so doing, we'll be showing up all of these losses and this shortfalls that we have as a country. It is plus politics that we return again on Friday. My name is Justin Kadine. Many thanks for watching.