The advice is curious. The adviser is queer. The timing of the advice is strange. What does the World Bank actually want from us? Is the bank changing its cloak? Is it a genuine re-think or outright regret?
What informed its new narrative about Nigeria? Or is President Bola Tinubu no longer in its “good books? Has the honeymoon ended, so soon? The era of reckless borrowings is over?
Honest. We need to properly interrogate the World Bank’s new thinking. Its odd, muffled singsong is suspicious. We don’t want to fall for it, to our monumental detriment. That would be the hugest disaster ever.
We must treat its new look with the utmost caution. That’s what it deserves. We shouldn’t allow the bank to rush us. Let’s learn to tread our bumpy path softly.
We should beware of land mines. Deceitfully laid on our passage. We need to borrow ourselves brain. We ought not to believe all the bank says. Or does not say.
Let’s be wise. And have discerning spirit to weather the storm. It is massive; a tornado of some sort. Above all, we need grace, strength from above.
These times are challenging. So also is our plight. Our traducers are coming home to roost. The World Bank is one of them.
Its bitter pill has done more damage than good. It has never healed any of its patients. Neither has it led any borrower country out of the woods. It rather sank them deeper into the bottomless pit of mess.
Fast-backwards; fast check. Whichever way, whichever method. The result remains essentially the same. Nigeria is a pathetic classical case study. We borrow blindly to service debts, pay salaries.
We are careless in borrowing. But prudent in bad spending. Both ways, we incur big losses. Our priorities are grossly misplaced.
So? After going back and forth. The World Bank summoned courage the other day. It came to terms with stark reality. It refused to continue to gloss over the glaring inadequacies of government. The greatest being wasteful spending.
This very time around, the bank is succinctly on spot. It took its valued customer, Tinubu, to the cleaners. Very unlike the World Bank. Why it did what it did is best known to it only.
On Wednesday, October 23, 2024. It gave a damning report sheet to Tinubu. Its grudge is his government’s wasteful spending. And this resulted largely from: “Non-essential expenditures such as vehicle purchases and external training programmes.”
Its Senior Vice President, Indermit Gill, volunteered a brief breakdown: “The Tinubu administration spent N9.2 billion on State House vehicles within three months.
“Additionally, N250 million was allocated for decorations at ‘First Lady’ events over a brief period of five days. Despite the country’s economic struggles, the government also spent N14 billion on renovations, honoraria and foreign exchange acquisitions.”
Now, hear this: “Financial transparency and accountability have become major concerns, as Nigeria continues to rely on loans to fund its deficits.” It’s incriminating, condemning and damaging!
The bank would not overlook this also: “Government’s recent purchase of a presidential jet for N150 billion raised further questions, especially as the country grapples with limited resources and high debt servicing costs.”
Suffice it to say this report is a gross admittance of failure. World Bank’s medication has failed. It did not work the acclaimed wonders the bank professed. Deceit at its zenith!
All the same, that was impetus the Mo Ibrahim Foundation badly needed. Its 2024 Ibrahim Index of African Governance (IIAG), situated Nigeria where it rightly belongs.
It ranked it among the worst governed countries in Africa. Our disgusting partners are Sudan, Mozambique and Senegal. We’re the joint owners of that repulsive category.
The report brought out significant governance failures. It exposed government’s half-hearted war against corruption. It gave the lowest score of 28.9 per cent.
Security and rule of law garnered 39 per cent. Accountability and transparency, 47.3 per cent. Their cousins, social protection, inclusion, equality and infrastructure forever remained low.
IIAG acknowledged the success stories in Seychelles, The Gambia and Sierra Leone. It hailed the improved governance in those countries.
Seychelles stood out as the best-governed African nation. It overtook Mauritius: “Showcasing that progress is possible even amid broader continental challenges.”
Trust them. They won’t allow World Bank to feast on them unchallenged. That’s what they know how to do the best. They went to work. Consulted their crystal ball. Hurriedly. As if in obedience to World Bank, Tinubu “acted promptly.”
He reduced ministers’ convoy to “only” three. Bayo Onanuga, his spokesman, took it up from there: “President Bola Tinubu has restricted ministers, ministers of state and heads of agencies of the Federal Government to a maximum of three vehicles in their official convoys. No additional vehicles will be assigned to them for movement.”
That’s their understanding of cost-cutting measures. He even reminded us: “In January this year, President Tinubu took significant steps to reduce government expenditure by reducing his entourage on foreign trips from 50 to 20 officials. For local trips, he reduced it to 25 officials. He similarly reduced the Vice President’s entourage to five officials on foreign trips and 15 for local trips.”
It’s not today, not yesterday either. We have had this kind of road show many times over in the recent past. We are not shocked. We are not moved, not even impressed an inch.
How much of compliance have they achieved in previous directives? Did those concerned care to obey? We’ve not seen any. None could stand up and be counted.
Why repeat the orders? You were convinced they would be obeyed in brazen disobedience! And it came to pass. It’s all amusing and amazing!
After being sworn in as President, that May 29, 2023, afternoon, he became possessed. He was overtaken by a strange spirit. And he began to prophecy wrongly.
Without opening any file yet on any issue for that matter. Not even on fuel subsidy. He was yet to step into his new office. All the same, he made a damning policy statement. That unwise pronouncement hyped and hiked our woes to the rooftops.
Since that self-inflicted vomit. Well over one and a half years now. The horror of that fuel subsidy is still with us. It has refused to go. We insist, it’s their potent weapon of oppressing us.
You don’t utter such life-changing policies by mere grandstanding. The result is the crisis and chaos we have on our fragile laps.
Instead of doing the needful. They remain adamant in stubbornness. Churning out awkward narratives, idiotic arguments and nonsensical submissions.
They take us carelessly for granted. See, they even have this callous mind-set, that we can’t do anything. They are of the firm belief. That they have subdued, conquered and caged us. They erred!
Listen to Dr. Yemi Farounbi, Nigeria’s former Ambassador to the Philippines and Kingdom of Cambodia. He’s our greatest witness. He testified to our firmness.
He spoke with Daily Sun to mark his 80th birthday. That was on October 1, 2024. He beat his chest and roared: “Nigeria can’t remain in this incompetent level. If anybody believes that Nigeria will continue like this, tell him I, Yemi Farounbi, says no; Nigeria has a better future.
“But we only want to accelerate that by having good government, good structure, good system, good processes, so that it can be fast. But if it is not fast, it will move on its own. God help those that that huge structure of Nigeria will crush.
“I know Nigeria will be better. And it’s not just mouth. It doesn’t matter whether the government becomes more incompetent. It doesn’t matter whether Nigeria becomes more pauperised.
“What is wrong with us? And it starts from the top. Leadership is about the top. Henry Kissinger (former USA Secretary of State) said: ‘The leader is the man whose head is in the sky, but whose feet must be on the ground.’
“Our leaders don’t know what is happening on the ground. They don’t know the reality of the poverty, the hardship, the sacrifices the people are making.
The leader must be rooted in the reality of the grassroots. But his head must be in the sky to be able to have vision. When the leader does not lead by example, then the followers cannot follow.”
That is why we must rightly situate World Bank and its new singsong. This bank is highly hypocritical, devilish and mischievous. It calls the thief to steal and calls the owner to arrest him.
What manner of bank is this? You administered your pills on us. In another breadth. You blamed us for the negative results of your medication.
It would always exonerate itself. It would never own up to its misdeeds. It would forever blame others for its failures. It’s packed full of deceit, duplicity and crockery.
Its medicines have never saved its patients. Not even once. Anywhere. The outcome has always been endless tales of woe. Eternal sufferings and hardships.
It’s our determined resolve. We have to break the shackles into pieces. The cycle of oppression and slavery by the greedy West must cease.
They won’t let go of us so easily. It’s their deliberate intention. They once pillaged our resources. And enjoyed our loot and bounty unrestrained, unchecked. And they would want to hold on. To last eternity.
The battle is no longer in chains. It is in our inner minds. We need to genuinely identify the tactics being used against us. How to resist them; And scheme them out of our lives.
World Bank is one of such major tactics. They use it to tie us down in abject poverty. The earliest we break loose, the best for us all.
Don’t be ever deceived. None of its pills can heal us of our diseases. They’re specially designed and administered to keep us on perpetual life support.
Check around. They won’t apply such killer “conditonalities” to their economies. Even more intriguing. They recommend the same treatment for all loan-seeking nations. They care less the nature of their ailments. They must all take the same bitter pills.
The reason we must RUN OOO…
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