Why Africa is poor

Amount of foreign aid recieved by Nigeria between 1960 and 1997: £220 billion.

Amount of money looted from the Nigerian treasury by politicians between 1960 and 1999: £220 billion.

The scale of the task facing Tony Blair in his drive to help Africa was laid bare yesterday when it emerged that Nigeria's past rulers stole or misused £220 billion.

That is as much as all the western aid given to Africa in almost four decades. The looting of Africa's most populous country amounted to a sum equivalent to 300 years of British aid for the continent.

The figures, compiled by Nigeria's anti-corruption commission, provide dramatic evidence of the problems facing next month's summit in Gleneagles of the G8 group of wealthy countries which are under pressure to approve a programme of debt relief for Africa.

Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, has spoken of a new Marshall Plan for Africa. But Nigeria's rulers have already pocketed the equivalent of six Marshall Plans. After that mass theft, two thirds of the country's 130 million people - one in seven of the total African population - live in abject poverty, a third is illiterate and 40 per cent have no safe water supply.

The biggest thief was the late military dictator Sani Abacha, who stole between £1 billion and £3 billion during his five-year rule. (His widow keeps sending me e-mails asking for help in hiding the money.) Nigeria is under a new government today - but the onus should be on the new rulers to prove it can govern competently and honestly before we give that blighted nation the help it needs.

Posted by damian at June 25, 2005 01:50 PM | TrackBack