Nigerian bishops liken foreign debt to enslavement
September 02, 2024
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CWN Editor's Note: The Catholic bishops of Nigeria have backed public protests against the government’s economic policies, and said that mounting foreign debt “has turned out to be a new form of enslavement of present and future generations.”
The costs of servicing the debt make it impossible for the government to launch needed social programs, the bishops said. Their statement, issued at the end of a plenary meeting, also criticized the government’s failure to provide the conditions needed for economic growth.
The people have a right to protest economic conditions that “reduce most Nigerians to a life of cruel suffering and wretchedness,” the bishops said. They conceded, however, that public protests have been at times “diverted by criminal elements.”
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