Impact of External Debt-Induced Structural Adjustment Policies on Salient Aspects of the Nigerian Economy

Nigeria as also most African countries have as yet nothing to show from receiving foreign aid and loans running into billions of dollars well over the past 40 years. The contention for an end to aids and loans to developing countries and Nigeria in particular especially holds from the immense harsh realities that have been endured by the masses of the people all through the decades external aids have subsisted. The paper carried out a documentary survey of the impact of International Monetary Fund’s structural adjustment policies (SAP) on salient aspects of the Nigerian political ecology and found that IMF conditionalities are dubiously aimed at maintaining continued resource transfer from debtor countries to creditor nations with adverse impact on the environment and cost of living of the civic population of debtor countries. The adversities brought about by the policies ultimately violate international conventions on rights to life and well-being. The study therefore requests civil society groups, nongovernmental organisations and concerned international organisations to intervene and redefine the terms of engagement between debtor nations and their creditors with a view to redressing the disproportionate incidence of external debt and its conditionalities on the civic population of debtor nations especially those of Nigeria