evolution

The UK Telegraph: £220bn stolen by Nigeria’s corrupt rulers.

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.

Emphasis mine.

(inherited from: Drudge.)

UPDATE [18:56]: Since I’m a math major, I’ll handle the conversion for you: That’s a hair less than $401 billion (1 pound sterling = $1.82).

UPDATE [22:00]: The Captain’s Quarters has more.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 25th, 2005 at 18:48 and is filed under politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.