THE POLITICS OF FOREIGN AID AND THE DEVELOPMENT DEBATE IN NIGERIA

Abstract

Abstract The growing gap between the developed and developing countries has led to constant flow of foreign assistance from developed countries to developing countries to help them to overcome their development challenges. According to Easterly, (2006) the West–developed countries have spent over $ 600 billion on aid to Africa which Nigeria also benefited from. Despite this flow into the country, poverty still looms large and underdevelopment persists; just as there is still continuous and a seemly unending debate on the effectiveness of aid on development. This paper examined the politics of foreign aid and the development debate in Nigeria. This objective was accomplished via the utilization of secondary data sourced majorly from journals – national and international, textbooks among others. The paper is strictly an evaluative research, analyzed from the platform of soft power, and soft governance perspective. The study found that foreign aid has not critically addressed development challenges in Nigeria using development indicators like poverty and unemployment among others as a measuring rod; though the international community still insist on increasing the volume of development aid to developing countries like Nigeria. As such this paper recommends that the Nigerian government should negotiate foreign aid with the potential of addressing critical development challenges of its citizens and direct aid to critical sectors in other to explore the potential of foreign aid to Nigeria's development.