Member nations of the Paris Club have given President Olusegun Obasanjo a list of prominent Nigerians who allegedly siphoned public funds overseas. They want the president to go after them for prosecution. This was one of the conditions given Nigeria for the recent $18 billion debt relief.

President Obasanjo himself confirmed this yesterday when he received at the State House, Abuja, a Kwara State delegation led by Governor Bukola Saraki that went to felicitate with him for securing the debt relief. He did not, however, disclose the names of those involved.

“We must realise that this debt relief did not at all come easy…. They had shown me some of our highly placed people who are still misbehaving by siphoning money out of the country. Of course, we get more information; we will react to it and other reports,” he said, adding: “Those who are granting us debt relief are no fools. They are convinced that what we are doing is right and they are also feeling that we need to be encouraged so that we do more for what we are doing.”

He said payment of the balance of the debt owed the Paris Club would end the current deductions from states’ allocations. Nigeria is expected to pay to the Paris Club $12 billion following the $18 billion relief. State governments owe several billions of the foreign debt, prompting the federal government to deduct part of the debt from their monthly allocations to service the debt.

President Obasanjo said when the $12 billion was paid, state governments would enjoy fully their statutory allocations. He said very soon he would convene a meeting of the National Council of States to discuss payment modalities.

On the N180 million deducted monthly from the statutory allocations to Kwara State because of the external debt, the president said: “There is freedom in not being shackled by debt. There is freedom of your own action and freedom for you to do what is good. Once we pay that off (the external debt), the N180 million being deducted from the allocations to Kwara State will stop and also for every state. N180 million can do something substantial for a poor state like Kwara.”

He said the money ($1 billion) hitherto used in servicing the debts would be channelled into satisfying what he called “the human aspects of the needs of our people. We must get electricity and depend on power from NEPA,” he said.

His administration, he noted, was more than ever before challenged “to do more of the good things we are doing.”

“We are challenged to continue to raise the profile of Nigeria before the international community and we are challenged to do what is right, to do good for the benefit of our people.”

Governance, he said, was for the purpose of helping the well-being of the people, adding that the process of securing the debt relief was a long and tortuous one. The president said part of the reason why the Paris Club (a group of developed countries in the West) reduced the country’s debt was because Nigeria had been playing key roles in peace keeping in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Dafur, Republic of Congo and Haiti. “This is because we believe in undivided peace in the World,” he emphasized and commended the Kwara State government over its deal with the Zimbabwe farmers.

He lampooned those criticising the Kwara State governor over his agreement with the Zimbabwe farmers, arguing that, “Agriculture is no joke, that’s why you don’t see many Nigerians in it. We have to encourage people to do it whether they are Nigerians or not.”

Earlier in his remarks, Governor Saraki said they were in the State House to praise the president for securing the debt relief and for making history as the president that secured the freedom of the country from the shackles of debt burden. “You have secured a place in history as the president that freed Nigeria from the shackles of debt,” he told President Obasanjo.

Describing Kwara as a highly indebted state in Nigeria, he revealed that N180 million was deducted from the federal allocations to the state on account of the foreign debt and was happy that the monster was being caged permanently. Kwara, he said, supported that the $12 billion balance of the debt be paid from the excess crude oil sales.

Charles Ozoemena, Vanguard Media Limited, July 15, 2005