Nigeria’s parliament has passed a nonbinding resolution demanding the country, Africa’s most-indebted nation, stop repaying its US$35 billion foreign debt.

In a resolution passed Tuesday, Nigeria’s House of Representatives also criticized foreign creditors for failing to give Nigeria debt relief despite government efforts to do “all that is humanly possible” to reform the economy.

The resolution called on Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo “to cease forthwith further external debt payment to any group of foreign creditors.”

Nigeria’s presidency, however, explained that the parliament did not have the authority to order a halt in foreign debt repayments.

Parliament’s resolution said Nigeria was similar to countries emerging from war, because its economy had been devastated by a series of military regimes from 1984 to 1999, who stole billions of dollars (euros) from state coffers.

Obasanjo has presided over a slow-moving reform program since he was voted into office in 1999.

“As much as one identifies with the sentiments that have been expressed by the house . . . the truth is that policy in this respect is determined by Mr. President and the executive,” Obasanjo’s spokesman Femi Fani-Kayode said.

“A decision to stop paying debt completely is something that is most unlikely to be taken because we have to operate within the confines of international law,” he added.

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation with over 130 million inhabitants, has the largest external debt on the continent. It is followed by Egypt, which has a US$31 billion foreign debt.

Obasanjo has actively campaigned for debt forgiveness for Nigeria, but international donors remain wary, unconvinced that enough is being done nationwide to fight corruption in the world’s seventh-largest oil exporter.

More than three-quarters of Nigeria’s debt is owed to the Paris Club of creditor nations. Unlike many developing countries, it owes only a small fraction of its debt to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund because past military rulers had cut virtually all ties with the organizations.

Associated Press, Forbes.com, March 9, 2005