Nigeria’s $18 billion Debt Forgiveness is a Piece of Crumb!

By

Emakoji Ayikoye

New York, USA

Usa_akoji@yahoo.com

July 4, 2005

 

 

A desperate beggar has no choice. Any crumb that is handed out to a desperate beggar is always highly appreciated by the beggar. This is certainly the case with Nigeria in respect of the $18 billion debt forgiveness just received. Prior to this debt forgiveness our president and his allies have made several trips overseas and literally begged on the issue. After spending huge sum of monies in travel and hotel expenses, only this fragment – $18 billion (60%) of Nigeria’s debt is forgiven. I am sure that some persons who may be reading my argument here will at this juncture curse on me as an ungrateful brat. But, why should anyone be grateful when compared to what is owed to us, we get only a little piece of this crumb out of it?

 

I called this $18 billion debt forgiveness for Nigeria crumb and history will bear me witness that indeed, it is just a piece of crumb that is tossed at our beggarly leaders, who have loot us to this miserable and shameful state of abject poverty that we are in today. History will justify me when I called this $18 billions debt forgiveness crumb because our colonial masters and the West in general owes us so much more than this crumbs disguised as debt forgiveness. After all these years of corrupt collaborative efforts by our sycophant leaders and their western accomplices, Nigeria have been raped to the extent that now, our economy is continuing to bleed endlessly, leaving over 80% of our citizens in misery and abject poverty. Bluntly, this $18 billion debt forgiveness is crumb when compared to the enormity of our economic woes, caused by the fact that we have been exploited, economically striped naked and raped to poverty in the midst of our vast natural resources. To me, this debt forgiveness, rather than sending back our stolen monies is just a hypocritical measure taken to negate any serious attempt to get our stolen monies back into our economy.

 

As sad as it is to say, I cannot help but say that, even this so-called debt forgiveness has only come about after decades of the debt’s crippling effects on our economy and livelihood. Our creditors, who contemplated not forgiving our debt, are in fact, from nations that have in the past exploited and continue to exploit us and our resources. They have sapped so much from us and thereby helped to propagate Africa’s economic woes. Consequently, what Nigeria and the rest of Africa need most from them is the return of our stolen monies with compound interest. Why? Compared with over $400 billion that was laundered and squandered into the coffers of western nations, Nigeria’s $18 billion debt forgiveness is like a drop of water in the ocean. Therefore, I don’t see what difference this $18 billions debt forgiveness will make when over $400 billion of our monies have been taken away to foreign accounts since our independence.

 

To the foreign creditors and the most powerful industrialized nations, I have to argue that the recent debt forgiveness that Nigeria and other countries in Africa have benefited from is just not enough! If you were to be sincere about eradicating poverty from Africa, the right thing to do is not to help excuse the irresponsibility of Africa’s notorious sycophant leaders by forgiving debts that should have been paid. Repatriating Africa’s stolen wealth and increasing grants and economic aids to these African nations is in fact, the right path to follow through to eradicating our poverty. In the first place, these debts taken by our leaders have never really benefited Africa’s masses. Therefore, forgiving these debts is really forgiving our leaders and allowing them to keep all these billions of dollars in their possession to this date, while the rest of us – the populace, are languishing in untold poverty.

 

I challenge the conscience of our creditors and the most powerful industrialized nations that, if they are serious about helping Africa’s poor population, the right thing to do is to make it absolutely impossible (perhaps through the United Nations) for any African leader and their usual western collaborating banks to steal a dime from Nigeria. Also, if Africa must be helped, now is the time to tell all these banks in Europe, America and other parts of the world to expose and send back all of Africa’s hidden monies in their crypt. Until this is done, I don’t believe this debt forgiveness is anything serious because it will not make any difference in alleviating the poverty of Africans, so long our corrupt leaders can steal and deposit our wealth in foreign accounts.

 

To the Nigerian’s government, I implore you fight to institute a law that prohibit any Nigerian official from stealing from public funds and either taking it abroad or evening keeping it in our banks. Nigeria creates measures that make it impossible for any leader to loot the country. If it seems like an impossible task to come up with ideas and laws to prohibit extortion and embezzlement of our public funds, I counsel our leaders to follow the examples of countries like Britain, USA, Canada and others to make it possible that any elected official caught looting public funds must be brought to severest public legal penalty.

 

To reiterate my point, Nigeria and Africa does not really need the kind of debt forgiveness we have just received; what we need is for our stolen money to be refunded and then, we need the strictest cooperation of the western countries where Africa’s monies are stolen and kept to make it impossible for any African leader and business persons to bring any stolen monies to their banks. If these measures can be implemented through the United Nations, Africa’s biggest problem would have been over or at least drastically reduced.

 

Believe it or not, this is sincerely my position!