CSO Warns of Poverty Risk as Nigeria’s Debt Profile Soars
The African Network for Environment and Economic Justice, a civil society organisation, has expressed concern that Nigeria’s increasing debt burden will plunge Nigerians into deeper poverty.
This was stated by the ANEEJ Executive Director, David Ugolor, at a two-day International Hybrid Conference on Special Drawing Rights. The conference, which had the theme “Making Special Drawing Rights work for the People,” was held in Abuja on Tuesday.
The Debt Management Office in Abuja hosted the publication of the paper, “Debt Management, Restricting and Sustainability in ECOWAS.”
The CSO boss said it was disturbing that a major chunk of the revenues in Nigeria is used to service debt, adding that this also affects some West African countries.
Ugolor, who was represented by the Deputy Director of ANEEJ, Leo Atakpu, said, “Statistics from the DMO shows that Nigeria’s public debt stood at N87,379,401.75 trillion as of June 30, 2023, and in the same vein, Ghana’s public debt stock rose to 569.3 billion cedis ($49.7 billion) at the end of April 2023, according to figures obtained from the Bank of Ghana.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has increased solvency and liquidity issues, which is one of the main reasons Sierra Leone’s debt is categorised as having a high risk of debt distress.
“For us in civil society, this is quite disturbing because most of our countries’ revenues are now being channeled to debt servicing obligations at the peril of basic social services, climate, and other development exigencies.
“The debt crisis imperils the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals and achievement of the Paris Climate Agreement in West Africa. This becomes even more worrisome when viewed against the backdrop that Nigeria remains the world poverty capital as designated by the World Poverty Clock report of 2023.
“It means debt will drive more Nigerians and indeed, West Africans into extreme and multidimensional poverty if urgent and drastic steps are not taken by our governments and the international community.
“In addition to reviewing the use of SDRs in Ghana and Nigeria, he stated the conference would “take a deep dive into current debates around SDR reallocation to countries in most need, such as Ghana and Nigeria, without having to exacerbate the debt crisis.”
According to a report published by the Nigerian Economic Summit Group and the Open Society Initiative for West Africa, other countries affected with huge debt profile are Benin Republic, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, the Gambia, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Niger, Senegal, and Togo.
