The European Union has urged Nigeria to show more transparency in its governance if the west African country wants debt relief from its foreign creditors, Nigeria's media reported Wednesday.

"The creditor countries, it appears, are not convinced that even with debt relief Nigeria would put its funds to best use," Vanguard newspaper quoted Leonidas Tezapsidis, head of the Delegation of the European Commission to Nigeria as saying.

Tezapsidis said that the creditor countries still find it unsatisfactory the manner in which transparency and governance are neglected in Nigeria, Africa's most populous country.

"Since in Nigeria there are three layers of government, creditors are not completely satisfactory if one of the layers shows reforms and transparency and the other layers don't really care about that," he said.

"Those countries want to be sure that there is enough transparency and accountability at the federal, state and local levels (of government) before they can consider debt relief or cancellation," said Tezapsidis.

As to what the European Union is doing to ensure Nigeria gets debt relief, he said it's not within its power to pressurize the creditors as it's not a member of the Paris Club or the London Club.

"If you are not a member of a club, you cannot give answers forothers even if those others are members of the European Union," heexplained.

Nigeria owes about 35 billion dollars to foreign creditors, mainly the Paris and London clubs. The House of Representatives unanimously passed a motion in March, urging President Olusegun Obasanjo to "cease forthwith further external debt."

Obasanjo then assured the lawmakers that he might take unilateral action if Nigeria's creditors denied the request for bilateral and multilateral dialogue for debt relief.

As Africa's top oil producer, Nigeria earns more than 20 billion dollars annually from oil but three-quarters of its 130-million-strong population still live in abject poverty on less than one dollar per day.

Source: Xinhua