Bola Tinubu has called for debt forgiveness from creditors and multilateral financial institutions for Nigeria and other developing countries at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).
Mr Tinubu made the appeal while addressing world leaders during the General Debate of the ongoing 79th Session of the United Nations General Assembly at the UN headquarters in New York, U.S., according to a statement by a presidency’s spokesman Stanley Nkwocha on Wednesday.
He called for the recovery of proceeds of corruption and illicit financial flows, stating that the return of such funds to countries of origin “is a fundamental principle of the United Nations Convention against Corruption.
Tinubu stated,”Countries of the global South cannot make meaningful economic progress without special concessions and a review of their current debt burden,
“Therefore, the international community must promote practical measures to strengthen international cooperation to recover and return stolen assets and to eradicate safe havens that facilitate illicit flows of funds from developing countries to the developed economies.”
However, according to the Debt Management Office in its Q1 2024 report, Nigeria’s domestic and external debts stood at N121.67tn ($91.46bn).
Nigerian states experienced a 122 per cent increase in external debt servicing in the first six months of 2024 of the Tinubu led administration, reaching N139.92bn compared to N63.06bn in 2023.
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