In exchange for partial debt relief, the Paris Club of creditor nations have handed Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo a list of well-placed Nigerians to go after and prosecute for allegedly stealing and stashing public funds in overseas bank accounts.

According to various reports, President Obasanjo confirmed the list publicly after he was pressured by a delegation from the state of Kwara to reveal the conditions of the Paris Club debt relief deal. The Lagos-based Daily Champion reports the president said dossiers on prominent Nigerians were shown to him during the Paris Club debt negotiation process.

The Paris Club is expected to write off about $18 billion of Nigeria’s $30 billion external debt. President Obasanjo’s government plans to pay the remaining $12 billion debt using funds from a windfall in oil revenues, subject to approval by Nigeria’s Council of State.

Although the president has not named anyone on the list, he said those that were involved would be picked up as soon as more information was made available to the government, the Daily Champion reports.

“They [the Paris Club] have shown me, some of our highly placed people are still misbehaving by siphoning money out of the country. Of course, as we get more information we will react on those other reports,” President Obasanjo said, Vanguard Media reports.

Responding to the news, the Niger Delta Peace Coalition, a non-governmental organization, has strongly urged the president to publish the names of those, believed to be past leaders and public officials, “who looted the nation’s treasure” and stashed funds abroad.

Comrade Zik Gbemre, the coalition’s national coordinator, said naming names was the “only way” Nigeria could show the rest of the world it was serious about putting an end to corruption.

In a public statement, Mr Gbemre said Nigeria must “put a final stop to the hitherto unrestrained stealing of public funds,” adding that if the looting was not curbed, Nigeria stood “to accumulate another huge debt …”

He said his coalition urged the president “without delay, publish those names, and the amount stolen, for public knowledge. They [the wrongdoers] should then face the music for their actions too.”

Gen. Bukola Saraki, the Governor of Kwara state, who led the delegation to press President Obasanjo for details of the Paris Club debt relief, had also wanted to know if the deal included other conditionalities, such as devaluation of the Nigerian naira and retrenchment of public-sector jobs.

Gen. Saraki said certain conditions and terms “might not be favourable to the common man,” the Daily Champion reports, and the government, he said, should not be seen to be accepting of such conditions.

The Strategic Union of Professionals for the Advancement of Nigeria (SUPA) have called on the government to reject the Paris Club deal outright, describing it as dubious, saying it did not accept that Nigeria should pay billions more than the country’s total external debt when it had already been paid several times over.

Odious Debts Online, July 27, 2005