Nigeria had anticipated that
Okinawa would produce more concrete pledges of help,
especially given the one-year crusade by President
Olusegun Obasanjo for debt cancellation for heavily
indebted countries. Nigeria's external debts total some
$31 billion, with a yearly servicing portfolio of $3.5
billion.
Dubem Onyia, minister of
state for foreign affairs, spoke this week of Abuja's
disappointment over the refusal to repudiate the debt of
poor nations. Onyia said Nigeria could not understand how
the G-8 could spend more than $500 million to host the
summit while poor indebted nations, which had looked
forward to the outcome of the meeting, could not get a
fraction of that amount written off.
The much-expected dividend
of democracy might be a dream if the developed nations
continued to be non-committal to the debts of poor
nations, the foreign minister said.
Onyia did not say if the
Nigeria-led debt cancellation crusade will continue but
other sources say Obasanjo, known for his doggedness,
will broach the subject again during Clinton's visit.
The planned Clinton
address, to a joint session of the 469-seat National
Assembly, will be incomplete without a full discussion of
the debt issue and other palliatives. Alan Larson, U.S.
under-secretary for economic, business and agricultural
affairs, promised this week during a meeting of the
Nigeria-U.S. Joint Commission that Washington will assist
in rescheduling about 80 percent of Nigeria's debts.
Larson said the U.S. would
like Nigeria to use only $1.5 billion annually to service
its debts instead of the required $3.5 billion.
For Kayode Taiwo, a senior
lecturer with the University of Lagos, the "limited
promises" of Okinawa remain a mirage until they are
translated into reality. Taiwo, a sociologist, wondered
why G-8 nations, most of which have enjoyed healthy
economic relations with Abuja, could not follow the
recent example of Spain, which has written off about $100
million in Nigerian debt.
In announcing the
cancellation during a visit to Abuja two weeks ago,
Spanish Foreign Affairs Minister Mogul Nadal said:
"Spain is only a marginal player since Nigeria does
not owe (Madrid) much." "There is a lot of work
to be done now," Nadal said, "Outside good
governance and transparency, the challenge before Nigeria
now is to get results. People want to see the results of
democracy."
But Taiwo told IPS the
Okinawa promises to help developing nations fight disease
and harness the power of new technology will create new
markets for products of the G-8 nations.
In his view, the $300
million in U.S. aid to promote free lunch for
schoolchildren in developing nations "will most
probably be channeled through UNICEF (the United Nations
Children's Fund). Disbursement is always through some
multilateral agency."
"I do not believe
that Western nations will give altruistic donations to
the developing nations. That will not be in their
character," the sociologist said. Aside from the
misgivings of development lobbyists, the U.S. food aid
program should help Africa, which, according to UNICEF's
year 2000 edition of the "Progress of Nations,"
has an average of 40 percent of stunted growth among
children under five.
Nigeria, with an average
of 43 percent, is one of the 13 nations on the continent
above the regional average.
This means that about 20
million Nigerian children are malnourished and may
bepermanently stunted.
The UNICEF report,
launched here this month, said: "Stunting happens
over time and means that a child has endured painful and
debilitating cycles of illness, depressed appetite,
insufficient food and inadequate care. "Many
children do not survive such rigors, many of those who do
survive carry long-termdeficit and mental capacity along
with losses in stature," the publication said.
When it does come, the
U.S. food aid may only be a palliative for Nigeria, whose
agriculture has suffered severe declines due to
inconsistent policies and mismanagement of development
funds. Halle Jani, a large-scale farmer in the northern
state of Katsina, told the government-owned news agency
that poor harvests will be recorded this year because of
the "unusually high cost of fertilizer due to the
removal of subsidies by the federal government."
A 50 kg bag of fertilizer
currently costs about $20, which Jani says is "out
of the reach of poor farmers." "This season,
most farmers planted cash crops, which need less use of
fertilizers, instead of food crops," he said. Jani
warned that restoration of fertilizer is the "only
way to guarantee food security in the country."
The Clinton visit to
Nigeria is seen as one of the first tests of the
international cooperation that Okinawa recommended.
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