"The Paris Club of creditor countries has agreed the outline of a debt relief package for Nigeria. About $18bn (£10bn) of debt will be written off and Nigeria plans to buy back a chunk of outstanding loans. About $31bn of Nigeria's debt is owed to members of the 19-nation-strong Paris Club." BBC News

This is great news! Now I love President Obasanjo .

Praise God.
Seun, with this development will govt. afford to put food on common men's table?
This is a good omen. Supreme court will now rule in favour of "Baba"
AREMU! kEEP IT UP.

hum i just hope, this is not a way to futher encourage us to borrow more money.

It would only be a good news to me, if this helps us to grow tomorrow. By the way when did we last pay our debts?

Show me the money first!
In fairness to OBJ, he is doing all he knows how...and if this comes through it is good for us. What are the conditionalities attached to the deal, do anyone know yet? What plans do they have for the excess money now?

And most importantly, what are we doing to those that stole us blind?? Go to some colleges in the UK, you will find many Nigerians paying cash for the school fees/tuition...has the government ever thought of investigating where the money comes from? If it comes from parents and guardians, what business are they involved in? How many are civil servants and bureaucrats, and how many are legit. business owners? How can they afford to pay thousands of Pound Sterling in cash? This might seem really vindictive, but that will be one of my approach to tackle corruption as a president.

I need to see the terms of the deal to be totally satisfied.

Imnakoya:

And most importantly, what are we doing to those that stole us blind?? Go to some colleges in the UK, you will find many Nigerians paying cash for the school fees/tuition...has the government ever thought of investigating where the money comes from?

what does someones parents ability to afford his foreign fees has to do with corruption? Do you know that most Nigerians do not depend on their salaries for a living? They are very enterprising, they have businesses here and there and therefore could afford it. Besides honestly about the issue of corruption in Nigeria, we can only tackle it if we start scrutinizing ourselves. Are you corrupt? Am I? Charity begins at home, besides, is the greatest OBJ corrupt? I wonder

How exactly is this good news for us?
Can someone please explain how it works. Debt relief and Nigeria's development.

Every year, The Federal Government spends a significant portion of it's foreign exchange reserve on the interest on these debts and tries to pay back some of it. The amount of money spent on interest will be drastically reduced, and the remaining debt ($13 bn to the Paris Club and about $4 billion to other creditors) should be easier to pay.

so more detail :

The Paris Club of creditor countries has agreed the outline of a debt relief package for Nigeria.

About $18bn (£10bn) of debt will be written off and Nigeria plans to buy back a chunk of outstanding loans.

The country owes the rest of the world $35bn, and the new talks are linked to an agreement between Nigeria and the IMF on debt repayments.

Nigeria is the world's seventh-largest oil exporter and Africa's most populous nation, but also one of its poorest.
About $31bn of Nigeria's debt is owed to members of the 19-nation-strong Paris Club. It has not received any fresh loans since 1992, but repaid $8bn debt since then.

Part of Nigeria's case in asking for debt relief has been that most of the money it received was lent to corrupt military dictators, a fact the African country says was well known by foreign banks and governments.

The UK's Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, said the debt relief combined with the debt buy-back would "mean there is 100% debt relief for Nigeria possible over the next six months".

The UK is Nigeria's biggest creditor and has been attempting to persuade other G8 creditors of the need for debt write-off.

'Economic reform'

The debt breakthrough came after Nigeria expressed its willingness to clinch a new deal with the IMF to pay its arrears to Paris Club creditors.

"The representatives of the Paris Club creditor countries... expressed their readiness, consistent with their national laws and regulations, to enter into negotiations with the Nigerian authorities in the months to come on a comprehensive debt treatment," said the group of creditor nations.

"They took note of the economic reform programme implemented by the Nigerian authorities since 2003 and of their willingness to take advantage of exceptional revenues in order to finance an exit treatment from the Paris Club."

It said the debt relief would be significant, and allow for long-term debt sustainability.

The initial debt relief terms will be based on the so-called "Naples terms" - which are equivalent to a 67% reduction on the face value of debt and are applied to debts of poorest nations.

'Major development'

"As an initial negotiating position, it is welcome, but Nigeria will naturally press for a higher discount," said Nigerian senator Udo Udoma.

"It is a major development because about a year ago they (Paris Club) were not willing to listen to any plea for debt relief.

"To move from zero to 67% within a year is a major development, I am excited by that."

Campaign group Actionaid welcomed the deal, saying that "Nigerians have been paying out in debt repayments nearly six times the amount they receive in aid."

"As home to one in five Africans, progress on debt in Nigeria is critical to progress on poverty in Africa," the organisation said.

And international development minister Hilary Benn said: "This deal will help to change the lives of millions of people in Nigeria.

"Today's deal is a major step in bringing a better future for the people of Nigeria, in a country in which seven million children receive no schooling at all and one in five die before their fifth birthday."
_________________

kazey:

hum I just hope, this is not a way to futher encourage us to borrow more money.

It would only be a good news to me, if this helps us to grow tomorrow. By the way when did we last pay our debts?

according to the article we last borrowed in 1992, and I think we have been servicing our debt upto date albeit with constant negotiations to bring down the amount of interest we pay.

demmy:

How exactly is this good news for us?
Can someone please explain how it works. Debt relief and Nigeria's development.

Demmy, Suen has explained it nicely above.

with Debt Relief we can spend more money on developing Nigeria.

I think that our repayment last year was about $3b out of a budget of £11b! and if I am right we did not even manage to pay it but paibd about half.

I am sure someone else has more accurate figures.

this is really good news.

Our past leaders borrowed this money for their own selfish gains, with this debt relief and hope that the next administration will take advantage of the good

work baba has done we should be a happier country in the not too long future, so lets keep praying that it works well with the next president, continuity is what

we need now, otherwise we are back to square one.

well then let us hope good things come out of it for the ordinary people.

Ordinarily a country like Nigeria shouldn't have problem paying off its mere $30b debt when companies like wal-mart can be declaring over $100b in gross.

And besides with a barrel of petrol at around $60 what does govt intend to do with all that windfall?

Well to be positive about it I think it is a good omen 4 nigeria as a country.
But I must confess that I don't believe itr is the right time 4 the cancellation based on the fact that this country is still too corrupt 4 ordinary citizen to reap the benefit it.

In Abuja where I stay the level of corruption is still very high and everything is still who you know. The slogan still remains 'the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer'.

Shame!!! Big shame.
Nigeria does not deserve debt relief.
Reason being that we still have the same set of corrupt leaders in place.
These 're the same people who plunged the country into huge debts in the first place.
I question the motives of these people when they give a blank cheque to the nigerian leaders
to steal while they bring this money back to europe to aid the economy of the same people cancelling the debt.

Guys,
Billions of dollars have just been written off our existing debt! How do u see this? Some think we should never have been forgiven and should have been made to pay evey cent. What i think, its a sign that we've taken a step in the right direction. My only wonder is where and when we'll begin to see the effect of this.

What's your thot?

The question should be how many of us want progress? Its left for us to choose.

Na true o,

some people cant see Nigeria going anywhere.

but we can make it. debt relief is very good.

continuity is what we need now.

I understand all our sentiments about this issue. And who would not rejoice over a bit of good news. But within our patriotic hearts, one must not for get the major reason we're in this problems in the first place.
I remember in 1985 when the IMF issue came up and the Leaders then Buhari/Idiagbon refuse outright any suggestions of borrowing, but instead prefared to cut down the existing debts to $3 billion. Babangida came up and escalated the debts in the name of Structural Adjustment Programme. Capitalising on the economic ignorance
of nigerians together with the assistance of his corrupt aides, plunged us into this problem.

We seem to forget that its not a question of debt relief, but what we do with that debt relief. Obasanjo negotiates debt relief, but he leaves in 2 years time. There are talks about Babangida himself coming back. Imagine!
Nigeria needs leaders not debt relief. Leaders who would serve the country and not themselves. People with proper understanding of the problems that we have, and with geniune sencerity to solve them. People who are exposed enough to see that the only way nigeria and indeed africa can be treated with dignity by the developed
community is to focus on the individual. The contributions of highly skilled and educated nigerians abroad is enough to wipe out our debts. We have too much quality as a people to be begging for aid. We have to act as such.
Thinking that oil would keep on going is a preprousterous.
Nigerians have been decieved too long with the mental contraction that its the giant of africa while we see how the likes of Indonesia and Singapore, Brazil and even India have use their human resourses to turn their economies around. Now the G8 cannot ignore them again.
My fear is that we still have these diabolic element running the system and not until we can mobilse and free ourselves form their hold, it scares me but desolation beckons.
I fervently pray and hope i'm proved otherwise.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200507080882.html

G8 Summit:Africa is Offered a Little - At a Price







Inter Press Service (Johannesburg)

ANALYSIS
July 8, 2005
Posted to the web July 8, 2005

Sanjay Suri
Gleneagles

The G8 leaders offered Africa a little with one hand, but that offer cloaked intent to take back more -- and with many more hands.

There were numbers around to satisfy rock stars turned anti-poverty campaigners. U2 frontman Bono had said on day one of the Group of Eight summit, "We could get to 50." So if you add statements of an additional 25 billion dollars in aid to statements of 25 billion dollars in aid at present, you have that magic figure of 50.

On the ground in Africa that figure may not appear so magical. The leaders announced that "the commitments of G8 countries and other donors will lead to an increase in official development assistance to Africa of 25 billion dollars a year by 2010, more than doubling aid to Africa compared to 2004." So only "commitments" -- and those by 2010.

"That is some increase in aid, but not as much as has been hyped up," Claire Melamed from Christian Aid told IPS. "And a lot of what has been announced has been announced and promised before."

Still, that was something to show here at the Gleneagles golf resort, after host Britain had made Africa one of the two priorities (along with climate change) of the summit of the heads of government of the G8 most powerful industrialised countries (United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and Britain).

But delayed, or even partly denied donations are not Africa's problem. The G8 pushed the privatisation principle strongly in its communiqué, in the face of a host of studies, several of them accepted even by the World Bank, that rapid and unfettered privatisation had ruined the economies of several strong and struggling nations alike.

"Private enterprise is a prime engine of growth and development," the leaders said in the communiqué that marked the end of the July 6-8 summit. "African countries need to build a much stronger investment climate: we will continue to help them do so." Within Africa "partnership between the public and private sectors is crucial."

The G8 offered help in building "the physical, human and institutional capacity to trade, including trade facilitation measures." But not a word about the agricultural subsidies in the European Union and the United States that make competition so tough they are crippling African farmers and their produce in their own land.

And who will take more advantage of privatisation in Africa than companies from the United States and the European Union? "The G8's approach on trade seems to be 'Ask not what we can do for the poor, but what the poor can do for us,'" said Peter Hardstaff from the World Development Movement (WDM), an independent non-governmental organisation.

The relief is indeed a relief in the reall sense of it. But I believe there's more to it than meets the eyes.

Man is by nature an insatiable and voracious being. And I am yet to scream until I see even an aiorta of a positive change as a result.

I laud our president, Olusegun Obasanjo for his readiness to serve and make Nigeria a better "palace" but whatever comes out of this relief or our country in general I will not throw away my laud for OBJ for there are certainly people kicking against every step taken by Nigeria to advancement; even the so-called foriegn aid givers (but not from the G8 Summit)

yes, we all thank God and Blair for the debt relief but i fear OBJ would try to use this as an excuse to extend his reign beyond 2007

I am happy for Nigeria.

Obasanjo wont stay pass 07. the real problem is who will come in 07. I dont want any of the old click. hopefully one of the younge governor's, not saraki

maybe OGD.

Dont rejoice. Debt relief comes at a price that would even put u in more debt. These whites r not fools

Ok can someone divulge to us the conditions under which we were forgiven or pardoned of this dept?

mohammad Buhari said it might be one of the conditions that will not favour the common men such as devaluation of our currencies.

But Baba said the pardon did not come on a platter of gold. He said some names of our highly placed people have been given to him by Paris club, these people are the ones still misbehaving, engaging in Money laundry and siphoning public funds.

He said they will soon face EFCC.

I suggest one of the conditions is to fight corruption to the bearest minimum. Which is good for the country.

But the issue of devaluation of our currency I do not know and Baba did not say anything like that.

What can I say? As if to make a mockery of the recent debt relief package, Nigeria is already borrowing more money!
"The World Bank has offered another loan of 390 million US dollars to Nigeria to help it in the fields of water supply, power generating, state governance and capacity building, an official said here Saturday." xinhuanet.com

Seun how can we get to talk to Obasanjo not to take this loan.

He's driving us to another farm of slavery.

Any one knows baba's number? I've got to talk to him.

I'm not surprised. I'm only surprised that only few Nigerians have an idea of the precarious situation we're in.
I've said we do not need debt relief, but LEADERS with a basic knowledge of Governance and Economics.
The ones we have now don't. Not in the least. Starting from the very top.
I hope most of us can begin to think more deeply about where we want to be as a people.
We very much need a way to save Nigeria from finally sinking into oblivion, and fast.
I tire O!

Whatever your view still may be we need debt relieve, it couldn't have come at this right time.

You're in Uk enjoying yourself there some people sacrifised to make that place reside- able.

Let's come together and salvage this nation.
this nation needs you and you need this nation.

There's poverty here oo!
So we need debt pardon.