US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright promised Nigerians on Wednesday she would work with Congress to triple or quadruple US aid to Africa’s most populous country in the year 2000.
“That money will help fight corruption, support democratic governance at the state and national levels, and fund teacher training, HIV/AIDS prevention, and progress towards civilian oversight of the military,” Albright said in a live broadcast on Nigerian television.
Albright, who arrived in Nigeria from Mali on the fourth stage of her six-nation whistle-stop tour of Africa, said she assured Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo on Wednesday that the United States was also committed to supporting Nigeria’s economic reform.
The United States is Nigeria’s largest trade and investment partner, Albright said, and relies on Nigeria for 8 percent of its imported oil. She described Nigeria, with an estimated population of 108 million, as a potential engine of economic growth and keystone of peace and stability.
Nigeria has taken the leadership and provided most of the money and men for the Economic Community of West African States Peace Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) that has seen action in Liberia and is still in Sierra Leone.
“We are providing an additional eleven million dollars in logistical assistance to ECOMOG,” Albright said, “and we will vote this week in the United Nations Security Council to deploy UN peacekeepers to Sierra Leone to help relieve the burden on Nigeria and its partners.”
She said Nigerians and North Americans would both benefit “if we do more together to fight the international criminals and drug traffickers who tarnish Nigeria’s reputation”.
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