One of the most pressing problems of third world countries today is that of foreign debt. Third world debt is now a matter of serious concern to the leading industrialised countires whose banks and governments have advanced or guaranteed the credit. For instance, both the City Corporation of New York and the Midland Bank of the United Kingdom had to sell their assets to make provision for bad debts arising out of the inability of third world countries to repay their debts. The debt problem is the result of the international devision of labour and the location of the third world countries within the existing international division of labour. As primary producers they have atched helplessly as the prices of their products plunged in the international market while the prices of manufactured goods keep rising. Superficially, it is this imbalance between their export earnings and their import bills that has created the debt problem.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
For one study of the Nigerian situation see OkurumeGodwin E.Foreign Trade and the Subsistance Sector in Nigeria (Praeger Publishers, New York. 1973). Fora third world perspective see Malcom Caldwell, The Wealth of Some Nations (Zed Press London).
2.
For the general third World picture see, TomKemp, Industrialization in the Non-Western World (Longman, Londoa1983).
3.
Zambia though is again taking to the I.M.F.
4.
See NabudereDan W., The Political Economy of Imperialism (Zed Press, London), especially Parts one and two.
5.
For the concept of unequal exchange and early capital accumulation see BaranPaul, Political Economy of Growth (Monthly Review Press, New York. 1957).
6.
See BadeOnimode, ‘Nigeria: The Dynamics of the challenge of underdevelopment’ in M.O. Kayode and Y.B. Usman, (eds.), The Economic and Social Development of Nigeria (Zaria 1978), p. 39. See also Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Tanzanian Publishing House, Dar es Salaam, 1972.
7.
EricWilliams, Capitalism and Slavery (London 1972).
8.
KarlMarx, Capital, Vol. 1. (Lawrence and Wishart, London), p. 703.
9.
See AdamSmith, The Wealth of Nations (J.M. Dent & Son, London1975).
10.
See Tama's Szentes, The Political Economy of Underdevelopment (Akademlai Kiado, Budapest, 1976), especially Part II.
11.
See AboyadeO., Foundations of an African Economy (Fredrick A. Pralger, London, 1966), p. 174.
12.
Emphasis mine, see NicolsonI.F., The administration of the Nigeria (Oxford University Press, 1969), p. 17.
13.
KwameNkrumah, Towards Colonial Freedom (Heinemann, London, 1962), p. 17.
14.
MorelE.D.Affairs of West Ajrica (Frankcass, London, 1968. p. 33.
15.
O. Aboyade, Foundations of an African Economy, op. cit. p. 154. See also AkeClaude, Social Science as Imperialism, (Ibadan University Press, 1982).
16.
For the beginning of import substitution industrialization in Nigeria see OnyemelukweJ.O.C.Structural and Locational Characteries of Manufacturing in OguntoyinboJ.S., AneolaO.O., and FilansM. (eds.), A Geography of Nigerian Development (Heinemann, Ibadan, 1978) pp. 262–266.
17.
See TeribaO., and KayodeM.O., (eds.), Industrial Development in Nigeria (ibadan University Press, 1977, p. 28.
18.
Budget broadcast by General Gowon, April 1, 1974, cited in J.O.C. Onyemelukwe. op. cit.
19.
2 Years of Shagari's Administration (Federal Department of Information, September 1981), p. 57.
20.
Cited by AsioduP.C., ‘Industrial Policy and Incentives in Nigeria’ in O. Teriba and M.O. Kayode (eds.), Industrial Development in Nigeria, op. cit.
21.
See 2 Years of Shagari Administration, op. cit.
22.
Emphasis mine, see Fourth National Development Plan 1981-1985 Vol. 1 (The National Planning Office, Lagos. 1981), p. 136.
23.
Title of Lenin's book on the crisis in the Russian Social Democratic Party.
24.
See Fourth National Development Plan, op. cit., pp. 77–78.
25.
AndraeConilla, and BeckmanBjom, The Wheat Trap (Zed, London, 1985).
26.
Ibid. p. 90.
27.
Ibid. p. 79.
28.
Ibid. p. 100.
29.
AdebayoAdedeji, in U.N. Document 3201 (S-VI), Declaration on the Establishment of a New International Order quoted in Bade Onimode, An Introduction to Marxist Political Economy (Zed Book, Londoa1985). pp. 18–19.
30.
HerskovitsJean“Dateline Nigeria: A Black Power’, Foreign Policy, Winter 1977-1978, p. 185.
31.
African Concord, 14.7.87. p. 17.
32.
BluntM.E., ‘The Place of Ideology in the Origins and Development of Public Enterprises in Nigeria’ in O. Tériba and M.O. Kayode (eds.), Industrial Development in Nigeria, op. cit. p. 81.
33.
See The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1989.
34.
African Concord, 14.7.87, op. cit.
35.
On class structure and economic development, see HarrisRichard, “The Political Economy of Africa - Underdevelopment or Revolution’ in HarrisRichard (ed.), The Political Economy of Africa. (John Wiley and Sand., London, 1975).
36.
See CallawayBarbara‘The political Economy of Nigeria’ in Richard Haris (ed.), The Political Economy of Africa, op. cit. See also Richard L. Sklar, Nigerian Political Parties: Power in an Emergent African Nation (Princeston, 1963), especially Chapter X.
37.
FantzFrantz: The Wretched of the Earth (New York, Grave Press, 1963), p. 179.
38.
Ibid.178–179.
39.
African Concord, 25.8.87, p. 44.
40.
NyerereJulius K., “Africa and the Debt Crisis’. African Affairs. Vol. 84. No. 337. October 1985. p. 489.
41.
See FriedAlbert, and SandersRonald (eds.) Socialist Thought (Anchor Books. Doubleday and Company, New York), pp. 429–510.
42.
See AdayeOrugbani, “Economic Restructuring in Africa: The Nigerian Experience.” in N. Nzewunwa and A.A. Derefaka (eds.) Archaeology, Culture, Tourism and the Nigeria Economy, Proceedings of the 7th Conference of the Archaeological Association of Nigeria, 1988.
