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Topic     Nigeria and more foreign loans One of the truly major problems confronting Nigeria, many African countries including many developing countries of Latin America and Asia today, is foreign debts. The debts most of these countries owe to some developed countries are no longer simple issues of economic or business transactions between nations. They have become a potent political weapon in the hands of the creditors to whip any unfortunate developing country that wants to step out of line. The crises arising from these debts have grave effect on the social, economic, political and even psychological lives of peoples of the developing countries. Poverty, disease, illiteracy and needless wars are some of the direct consequences of our debilitating debts. So serious is the issue that it is no exaggeration to say that many developing countries now simply exist to pay debts to the developed and industrialed nations. For try as much as they do to free themselves from that noose, they seem to get themselves more strangulated in it. It is pointed out, for instance, that Nigeria has paid almost three times over what it originally owed as principals to its rich creditors, yet today our country is still said to owe over $34 billion dollars. It is a measure of the deep trouble we are in that in the recently proposed federal budget before the National Assembly, the Federal Government allotted about N360 billion (which represents about 10 percent of the budget estimate) not to pay some of what we are actually owing, but merely to service the debts, that is, to pay interest accruing on the debts! This of course means that next year, Nigerians are not likely to hear any cheery news that their debt has reduced. At best, they may be told that the situation has only not grown worse. Given this background, we are shocked to our bone marrows by recent news that the federal government is seeking N18 billion World Bank loan to prosecute its reforms agenda. A nation which is almost sinking under the debt of $34 billion still wants to go for more loans. This is beyond comprehension. We are already trapped in what political economists call the debt noose. What most patriotic Nigerians expect the government to do is to come up with a pragmatic and patriotic approach to getting our nation out of it. No reasonable Nigerian expects that our governments both (states and federal) would still be fool-hardy enough to ask for yet more foreign loans. Seeking for more foreign debts now looks like a drug addict asking for more drugs on credit! Most of those in government now do not mind incurring more foreign debts because they realize that some of the loans they seek have long repayment periods and that they would not be around to pay them when they fall due. They are simply being short-sighted and unpatriotic. The truth of their action is that those loans increase Nigeria’s debt profile and adversely affect the image and credit rating of our country. It is also very unpatriotic and unfair to the future generation of Nigerians who must necessarily pay these debts. Fairness demands that if our present crop of leaders have no worthy legacy to bequeath to the future generation, they should at least not take any steps that would ensure that a Nigerian born 20 years from now will come into this world an automatic debtor. Since the debt issue has become one that affects the standard of living and sense of dignity of peoples of the developing nations, Nigerians should not leave the matter of whether or not to take loans to the discretion of leaders in the executive branch who are often thoughtless, reckless, unpatriotic and shortsighted. Nigerians at all levels should rise up and demand that before the chairman of their local government area, the governor of their state or the president of the country takes any foreign loan, the matter should be subjected to a referendum or plebiscite. We can no longer continue to sit idly by while our leaders allow us to get more and more deeply into slavery. We must demand that unless our various foreign debts are liquidated, there should be no more foreign loans. If a country like Nigeria that earns an average of $200 million everyday without much sweat cannot use that to develop itself, there is no magic that any foreign loan, grant or aid can do for it.

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