Abstract:
This study examines Nigeria’s external debt and the politics of debt cancellation between 1999 and 2007. The Nigerian president Obasanjo had waged six – years war on debt cancellation. He hard to hire an ex World Bank Official, Nigeria born Ngozi Okonjo Iweala as finance minister to prosecute the war. In their bid, they joined other several other anti-poverty relief campaigners to argue that the relief is imperative. However, the Paris Club relief deal can therefore be viewed as a major political victory for the administration of president Obasanjo, domestically as well as internationally, (Owen 2005). For the purpose of our study, our research is guided by the following questions: Did external debt servicing obligation affect debt management options available to Nigeria between 1999 and 2007? Is the debt cancellation conditionality of Nigeria’s creditors between 1999 and 2007 give rise to her recurring debt crisis and finally, did debt management strategies enhance the reduction of Nigeria’s external debt between 1999 and 2007? Moreover, we anchored our study on the dependency theory as our theoretical framework of analysis. We adopted the qualitative method as our method of data collection.
