The House of Representatives on Wednesday initiated an investigation into the $460 million Chinese loan obtained by the former President Goodluck Jonathan administration. The funds were intended for the procurement and installation of Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) systems in strategic areas of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) to boost security.
This decision was passed following the adoption of a motion of urgent public importance sponsored by Honourable Amobi Ogah (Abia State), who argued that the rising insecurity in the nation’s capital makes revisiting the project imperative.
It is relevant to note that the Federal Government secured the \text{\$460m} loan in 2010 for the FCT CCTV project, which was reportedly never fully executed. Previous scrutiny includes the 9th House taking the Ministry of Finance to task in 2019; the then-Minister, Zainab Ahmed, confirmed the loan was being serviced but failed to provide details on the project’s status. More recently, in 2023, a Federal High Court ordered the Federal Government to disclose how the \text{\$460m} was spent, following a suit by the Socio-Economic and Accountability Project (SERAP).
Speaking on the motion, Ogah acknowledged that the Jonathan administration initially sought to curb insecurity by installing the cameras for surveillance and crime prevention. He stated that the former Finance Minister, Dr. Olusegun Aganga, led a delegation to China in 2010 to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with ZTE Communications of China, which was subsequently awarded the contract.
Ogah expressed concern that the \text{\$460m} loan, obtained from the China-EXIM Bank as part of a \text{\$600m} soft credit financing portfolio (repayable over ten years after a ten-year grace period), continues to be serviced by Nigeria without any visible security impact. He noted that crime rates have instead soared in Abuja. The lawmaker concluded that the arrangement—where Nigeria heavily pays for a non-functional CCTV contract executed by a Chinese firm using a Chinese bank loan—constitutes a “lose-lose nightmare” for the country.
Contributing to the discussion, Billy Osawaru (Edo lawmaker) urged his colleagues to uphold their oversight responsibilities and ask challenging questions to discourage misconduct. Ahmad Jaha (Borno State) called for a thorough investigation of the multi-million dollar project. He stressed that given the present government’s debt burden, they must “get to the root of this matter,” especially since “a lot of money was spent to procure CCTVs, but they are nowhere to be found.”
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