Stop giving them our money

i feel the pain of the brittons, in a society like Africa where we do nt know d labor of others we can never appreciate d little gifts. We have govt full of corrupt people and so much shld nt be expected. I also think the british and govt shld have measures that will curtail money laundry.

i acknowledge the hypocrisy of the britons, after exploiting these countries for years, they now turn around to throw pittance at them...the 100 m pounds to nigeria, is it free with no strings attached? absolutely not...and the truth is nigeria does not need aid....it is rich enough to take care of itself...if it gets rid of all these individuals who continue to cart her wealth back to britain...

Much of the "Foreign Aid" from western countries go to their own people, who come on jaunts to Africa, collecting salaries from the "Aid", riding around in expensive SUVs and taking useless notes. The balance typically has "Buy British" strings or whatever donor country's strings attached to it - for worthless goods, including arms, designed more to help the economy back at home than to help the receiving nation. Otherwise, it comes with the understanding that they will go to head of the line in bidding for commercial projects. Then they stand in Parliament with pious faces talking about how much "Aid" they gave to Africa. What a joke! What hypocrites.

Mary, stop embarrassing yourself. Who are you apologizing to? Africa is not a single society. You cannot paint the entire continent with one brush stroke. Aid to Africa is generally ineffective because it is generally misguided. Historically, Western governments have given seemingly never-ending amounts of cash to governments in different parts of Africa that were either explicitly corrupt or in many cases operating without the mandate of the people. In Nigeria's case, I personally believe any aid that was received during the time of any our military regimes is a wasted effort for which Nigerians today should not be responsible. Otherwise it is tantamount to holding a kidnapping victim financially responsible for reimbursing a police force's efforts for rescuing him, instead of charging the kidnapper. Gowon, Buhari, Obasanjo, Abubakar, Shonekan, and Babangida are all still alive. They should be responsible, along with the estates of their deceased counterparts for Nigeria's debts, which was almost entirely racked up during non democratic regimes. As far as donor governments are concerned, if they would treat African and other developing nations as equal business partners instead of beneficiaries, both sides could prosper. It is in the best interests of more than just Nigeria for electricity and water and fuel to flow properly in the country. There is a direct and fair benefit derived from investing in Nigeria, as opposed to encouraging and aiding corruption, only to wag fingers in disappointment afterward. You cannot complain that aid money is ineffective when you hand it out without conditions and then allow it to be repatriated secretly into hidden bank accounts in London and Zurich, which only make more money for donor countries, while making poor countries poorer.

According to Mr. Mylrea, the 2009 DFID’s budget to be spent on the global international development is about £5.6 billion, of which 50 per cent is expected to be spent in Africa. Yes, Nigeria got £100million out of the £5.6billion budjected for DFID. Thats about 1%. Well Thank you Britain. Its not ur fault at all that this insult is passed to Nigerians and Africans. If our leaders (political and Religious) had gotten it right. We would have been partners today than dependants. Well Britons have tried but they should also know that they've cheated us with an amount that will take hundreds of accountants to reconcile.

Tata, the rate on which you comment on every single piece of news and article on NEXT on a daily basis, suggests to me that you are not busy person. Get a job!

They give us aids, our corrupt leaders cart the money back to their banks, so technically they get the money back immediately with interest. And supporting Ben's post - who's the beneficiary now?

They should do a poll and whether the average Nigerian is aware of DFID. They should do another on e on whether we want these aids. Oyinbo does not understand that there is a huge disconnect between the Government and the people. He cant see that UMORO doesnt represent the average Nigerian.

The british man on street has no clue about what aid really entails and therefore will never have any say in what their government does. Aid is actually costing Africa a lot. They keep banging on about corruption but continue to give aid because it is necessary for their industry in britain. Their goods are forced into the African market as one of the many unfair conditions of getting the aid. They also know that whatever is left of the cash, after their consultants are paid and provided for, will end up back in their country. They also never ever allow the history (or rather antics) of the british in Africa and other colonised regions to be taught in their schools because they'd rather have their citizens believe they have have no hand in what is happening in Africa today. The British are the most hypocritical people you will ever come across. Let them educate their ignorant citizens on the complexity of aid. Don't even get me started on their "Charity" providing water for remote villages in Africa for children who must always be photographed with flies on their faces. Charity is big business in Britain.

@ifeoluwa...the rate at which you notice my comments means you are not doing something useful...don't get a job, join the pdp...

@kelly and Bolaji David...good point. Thanks for your wise comment. It takes two parties for corruption to flourish and i guess the donor wins either way.

Britain needs to slash trade barriers to Africa yesterday as an alternative to propping up the world's poorest countries with handouts. Ifeoluwa, for you to know TATA commented on every single news suggest you have been reading his comments, doesn't sound like you are busy either. Dont throw stones if you know u live in a glass house, just my 2 cents

Pls we dont need your moneyy,your aid as made us unproductive.

I recently got into an argument with a fellow on another news board over a video clip of a speech our dear Chimamanda Adichie gave at Oxford University recently. The topic of her speech was the "Danger of a single story". The gist of her speech was that Westerners view Africans as a helpless continent, a people who are unable to take care of themselves. And as such, their relationship with us is defined in that context, as a people always needing help. She wanted to show that we have a lot of success stories, like herself and others, and therefore and are capable of taking care of ourselves. Unfortunately, her effort is muted by the current state of affairs in Africa. I had pointed out in my response that they are not far from the truth. We really can't seem to figure out how to take care of our affairs. I also mentioned that it is foolish to expect them to treat us as equally partners on major international issues (like joining the U.N. Security Council) when every time you read a Nigerian daily, there is another story of a foreign government official coming to Nigeria to hand-off a check to our government. If it isn't the British, it is their cousins, the Americans, or the Japanese, or the Scandinavians, the European Union, and the list goes on. Even tiny Denmark of about five million people gives us aid and we gladly accept. How shameful. Just in today’s NEXT issue, I saw two headlines to support my argument. This story, “Stop giving them our money”, and “European Union votes N10 billion for projects in Niger Delta”. If you go another two weeks, you are bound to read more stories like this. There is nothing inherently wrong in accepting aid to address a major social and economic crisis. There are many countries that were once in our shoes, but have graduated from the perennial aid recipients to givers. The Europeans stand as an example, after WWII and many Asian countries. They all have been able to grow their economies to become net givers. We should be able to learn from our problems and try to mitigate it from occurring year-after-year. And if they should occur, we are in a better position to solve it ourselves rather than depend on others. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case. So the cycle continues. Can you blame the average Brit, who is cynical about the aid their government gives?