The World Bank team came calling last week. Nigeria was their destination. And that was expected. Their expedition into the troubled terrain of the Nigerian economy was designed to whitewash the crippling economic policies of the Bola Tinubu administration. As it always does when third world countries show preference for homegrown economic policies as against the bitter pills that issue forth from the Bretton Woods sisters, the World Bank team doubled down on government’s anti-people disposition to economic management.
Riding on the back of the launch of something called Nigeria Development Update, the World Bank team led by its Country Director, Ndiame Diop, and Vice President and Chief Economist, Indermit Gill, told Nigerians that Tinubu’s economic policies are good for Nigeria and should be sustained. That bizarre declaration must have stung the bewildered audience like a bee. To tell a people who are groaning to death that their tormentor is their friend must be the most naked form of ribaldry. How can a people be a party to their being killed?
Fortunately, the lie from the World Bank was not given the slightest chance of survival. The outspoken governor of Bauchi State, Bala Mohammed, was on hand to deal a death blow to the coarse joke.
A mild bickering was to ensue over the grinding poverty in Nigeria. Whereas the World Bank team tried to give the impression that the poisonous pill from the Tinubu administration is healthy for Nigeria, Governor Mohammed called the foreigners to order by telling them, assuming they didn’t already know, that the so called economic reforms are not working and should therefore be revisited. The governor presented them with the hard truth: that the reforms are snuffing life out of Nigerians and could, if not reviewed, snowball into a national crisis of immense proportions. Governor Mohammed’s quick interjection could only have come from a patriot.
As a member of the privileged class of Nigerians that is not so brutally affected by the economic crisis in the country, the governor, as many of his colleagues are wont to do, could have shrugged off the misrepresentation by looking the other way. But he did not. He chose to confront the lie on behalf of Nigerians. I commend the governor for connecting readily with the people.
This brings us to the point where we have to interrogate the business of the World Bank. We are told that the Bank is a global partnership fighting poverty worldwide through sustainable solutions. Like its Bretton Woods sister, the International Monetary Fund, IMF, the World Bank works towards achieving sustainable growth and prosperity for its member countries. Its role is to reduce poverty by lending money to the governments of its poorer members to improve their economies and the standard of living of its people. It also commits to supporting economic policies that are capable of increasing productivity and creating jobs for the overall economic well being of member countries.
Then, we ask: in what way does Tinubu’s economic policies come close to the declared objectives of the World Bank? What exactly is there in government’s economic reforms that attracts the Bank? Can it the hunger and poverty that is ravaging the country?
The present economic disorder in Nigeria has not created jobs and there is no increased productivity. If anything, it has led to loss of jobs with attendant reductions in the volume of productivity. In order words, it has increased poverty rather than reduce it. Where is the economic well-being that should attract the World Bank? There is none to point at. Rather, the people are eking out a living. Their purchasing power has fallen to an all- time low so much so that Hunger is walking on all fours. Poverty, on its part, is having a field day. The situation looks hopeless and the people are looking dazed. They need an urgent rescue from this state of anomie. Yet, the World Bank is asking them to live with it. The realistic situation is that the people cannot survive this state of affairs for long. Already, many have lost their lives on account of this untold hardship.
While economists will never stop arguing about the merits or lack of it of World Bank and IMF prescriptions on how poor nations can grow their economy, I find it discomfiting that these international financial institutions have consistently failed to isolate the peculiarities of the third world in their economic simulation policies. In encouraging Tinubu to crack on with his crippling economic policies, the World Bank has chosen to treat Nigeria as an abstract entity rather than a human setting inhabited by people with flesh and blood. In the Nigeria that the World Bank has interest in, the national minimum wage cannot sustain even the most miserly family of two for one week.
In Tinubu’s Nigeria, to eat has become a luxury. Freedom of movement has been forcefully curtailed because petroleum products have been priced out of the reach of everyone. Healthcare is a far cry. The sick cannot access medicare. How do they even contemplate that when they have no idea if the next meal will ever come? There is no social safety net to absorb or take care of this state of economic emergency in Nigeria. Here, every household is a government unto itself. It provides its own security. It also takes care of every possible social amenity. There is no government anywhere to provide for them.
The third world situation contrasts sharply with what obtains in the advanced world where governments stand in for the people and where social security safeguards are guaranteed. The reality of the third world cannot and will never fit into World Bank straightjackets. The Chief Economist of the Bank, Indermit Gill, was therefore being realistic when he expressed fear that the reforms could be halted due to stiff opposition from the people. Going by Gill’s projection, it will take 10- 15 years for Nigeria to get out of the present economic situation if the reforms are sustained. Can we see why it is realistic to say that the so called reforms are like castles build on sand. They will collapse like a pack of cards. Nigerians need to be alive first before imagining what possible gains the reforms hold for them.
QUOTE:
“In what way does Tinubu’s economic policies come close to the declared objectives of the World Bank? What exactly is there in government’s economic reforms that attracts the Bank? Can it the hunger and poverty that is ravaging the country?”
