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John O'Shea, The Economist, 24th May 2007
Sir,
Nigeria's descent into brazen electoral fraud bodes badly for Africa as a whole (“Big men, big fraud and big trouble”, April 28th). Corruption is still the single greatest impediment to the continent's development. I have campaigned for 20 years to try to persuade the Irish government to end their practice of routing aid money bilaterally through African regimes such as Ethiopia and Uganda which, like Nigeria's regime, allocate a low priority to the well-being of their people.
Although Nigeria appears to have made tremendous economic leaps in recent years, corruption is the foremost reason that, as you pointed out, “it has made little visible difference to Nigerians' wretched daily lives.” If Africa is to extricate itself from the mire of poverty, corruption must be weeded out from every facet of its society. And it is the responsibility of the developed world to ensure that its billions of aid dollars are spent responsibly, and not merely to pay for more government jets.
John O'Shea
GOAL UK
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