The new president of the World Bank,Paul Wolfowitz, who wants to get firsthand information on problems that afflict African people, arrived in Nigeria Sunday on his first trip to the troubled continent since taking office this month.

Wolfowitz, also the former US deputy defense secretary, has declared his bank will make Africa their first priority to help it climb out of poverty and turn into a "continent of hope."

On arriving Abuja, he immediately began his on-the-spot inspection by meeting nomads outside the Nigerian capital and then visiting a new power distribution facility under the bank's developmental projects in Africa's most populous country.

Wolfowitz said the bank was committed to bringing about changes in the country's power sector. Frequent power outages have been the order of the day in Nigeria following the sharp drop in electricity supply to 2,400 mw compared to domestic demand put at over 6,000 mw. The World Bank described power supply as one of the hurdles faced by its economic, industrial and investment growth.

However, he urged the Nigerian government to fully cooperate with the bank for the transformation of the energy sector, and to ensure optimal growth in other sectors of the economy.

Wolfowitz is directly coming from the London Group of Eight finance ministers meeting which announced a day before the "100-percent debt cancellation" for 18 poorest countries, most of them in Africa.

A lot of that debt, which amounts to 40 billion US dollars, was owed to international institutions such as the World Bank, but the case of Nigeria was excluded as it is not classified under Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) being reviewed.

Nigeria currently owes about 35 billion dollars to foreign creditors, mainly the Paris and London clubs. President Olusegun Obasanjo, who had declared that the debts are not repayable, said Saturday the country and its creditors had "now reached an understanding on debt relief."

To that, Wolfowitz told reports in Abuja he was positive something serious would happen.

Wolfowitz also hailed Saturday's deal reached by the ministers,saying he was delighted as it's an important and successful outcome.

Wolfowitz is scheduled to meet Obasanjo, also the chairman of the African Union Monday. He will then go to Burkina Faso and Rwanda, two of the 18 countries on the new debt cancellation list.

South Africa is the last stop of his week-long African tour.

Source: Xinhua