+44 330 818 7254Today, China has become one of Nigeria’s major development partners and lenders, with total borrowing by Nigeria put at USD 3.121 billion, representing 3.94% of Nigeria’s total public debt of USD 79.303 billion and 11.28% of the external debt stock of USD 27.67 billion as at March 31, 2020. However, opposition has mounted against loans from China in view of its potentiality to worsen Nigeria’s debt burden and create serious implications for her sovereignty. This research therefore seeks to establish the implications of Chinese debts on Nigeria. The qualitative mechanism of data collection and analysis is applied while dependency theory served as theoretical framework of analysis. The paper found that contrary to the win-win orientation of China’s Nigerian policy, the Sino-Nigeria economic relation is fraught with trade imbalance in favour of China. It equally found that necessary ingredients of transparency and open competitive biddings are lacking in external borrowings from China which does not fundamentally aid Nigeria’s development. In view of this, the paper recommended that Nigeria undertakes a holistic review of its economic relations with China by embracing transparency, accountability and open competitive biddings in the process. More so, it recommended that Nigeria prioritizes indigenous solutions for her development so as to escape falling deeper into the debt trap.
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