Debt {Return} Skewed Argument

US Lawmakers Call Nigerian Debt "Odious"

"We feel that the U.S. should not accept the payment of debt from Nigeria given that it is one of the world's most impoverished countries," said the letter. It added that a write-off would cost the United States, the world's largest economy, "a relatively small amount in terms of the U.S. budget, but large in terms of the potential impact in Nigeria".

The lawmakers, led by Rep. Donald Payne, a New Jersey Democrat, and Rep. Maxine Waters, a Democrat of California, noted that 20 percent of Nigerian children do not live to the age of five. In the impoverished West African nation, 2,500 children die every day from preventable diseases, while more than 300,000 Nigerians die each year from HIV/AIDS.