President Olusegun Obasanjo has called for immediate debt relief for Nigeria, pointing to the fact that his country is at a crucial time in its democratic transition and in urgent need of international support.

Speaking at a meeting with Kwesi Owusu, head of Jubilee 2000 UK Africa Initiative in Abuja on Tuesday 21 March, President Obasanjo said: “The time for an international commitment of deep debt reduction and forgiveness is now. Our foreign debt stands at $31 billion, and continues to rise, not because of any significant additional borrowing, but mainly as a result of the cost of servicing what was actually borrowed in the past. In these circumstances, it is simply not possible to speak of any significant measure of development, for as long as we are obliged to allocate so much of our lean resources to debt servicing. It is morally unjustifiable for the poor people of Nigeria to suffer any longer.’

In 1998, Nigeria was removed from the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries list of countries in need of debt relief. No credible or coherent reason for this decision was given from the international financial institutions. Removal from this list means there is no chance of significant debt relief for Nigeria.

Nigeria is expected to divert over $3.6 billion a year from social and economic development to service international debt. The budget for Nigeria’s new Poverty Alleviation Programme (PAP), just approved by the Senate, is $100 million. At least half of Nigeria’s 121 million population does not have access to safe water. Only 38% of children are immunised against measles and per capita spending on health is a shocking $3. Cholera, meningitis and other life-threatening diseases have taken root, and a severe AIDS crisis is developing.

Also in the meeting, President Obasanjo enthusiastically supported Jubilee 2000’s call for a new international independent arbitration process to negotiate between indebted countries and western creditors. He said: ‘We need a fairer system to regulate between borrowing and lending, between creditors and indebted countries. Only a process of independent arbitration can guarantee this. What we are seeking from the industrialised world is not charity but fairness. We also seek a fairer understanding of the plight of developing countries, especially as they struggle to enthrone truly democratic culture in their countries, and at the same time provide their peoples with basic amenities of life.

“Vast sums of our public funds have been stolen and transferred out of Nigeria in the past 20 years. A large portion of this stolen money is deposited in banks in the west, including the US, Switzerland and the UK. And yet the banks which frequently dismiss Nigeria as a corrupt country are the very ones which continue to cite the convenient doctrine of confidentiality as an obstacle which prevents them from assisting us in tracing and recovering these funds. The fact, of course, is that the Nigerians who in the past have deposited these funds with them, are equally guilty of an infringement of law. Profiting from stolen goods is just as culpable as stealing the goods in the first instance. Here too, we are calling for an international solution to the problem of stolen wealth.”

After the meeting, Kwesi Owusu commented: “The poor in Nigeria are paying for the odious debts incurred by military dictators which brutally repressed them for 15 years. They cannot continue to suffer. A clear line now needs to be drawn between the dark past and the present. This will enable the clamour for urgent economic reform to alleviate poverty to find constructive expression in the new democratic dispensation.”

Jubilee 2000 South Africa, March 28, 2000