For the umpteenth time this year alone, the World Bank has come forward to hail President Bola Tinubu administration’s for adopting the economic model prescribed by it and the International Monetary Fund, IMF.
At the launch of the Nigerian Development Update, NDU, report in Abuja last week, WB’s Country Director for Nigeria, Ndiame Diop, said the reforms were yielding results and urged Nigerians to support their sustenance for the country’s “long term stability”.
The pro-West Bretton Woods institutions have never hidden their fondness for Tinubu’s economic agenda which they practically dictated to him. Indeed, in June this year, WB sponsored an article titled: “Turning The Corner: Nigeria’s Ongoing Path of Economic Reforms”. They praised Tinubu for adopting “macro-fiscal and governance reforms along with continued investments in public goods (to) accelerate growth and improve the lives of its citizens”.
From the first hour of his assumption of office, Tinubu had announced the immediate commencement of petrol subsidy removal implementation. The official and “black market” forex regimens were merged to float the Naira, while the WB’s demand for the removal of subsidy on electricity was implemented in March this year.
In the above article, WB claimed that the Nigerian economy had already “turned the corner”. They reiterated their pledge to support the government with “technical advisory and financing” worth $15 billion to attain economic prosperity”. The lender recently approved $2.25bn and is already releasing $1.5 for “development policy financing”.
In his recent broadcasts to the nation, President Tinubu seemed to read from the copybook of the WB, extolling the “gains” already made, including improved forex supply, elimination of corruption in the forex regime and ending a subsidy the WB claimed benefited a corrupt, privileged few.
Tinubu’s critics accuse him of having no economic blueprint of his own but choosing to be a puppet of the universal lenders for easy loans and at the expense of the people. These policies are driving Nigerians nuts, with inflation and cost of living beyond anything they have ever experienced. Businesses are closing down, and multinationals are massively divesting and leaving the country, while Nigerians are starving.
The Tinubu’s government’s “investment in public goods” is pathetic. Where is the N40,000 per bag rice promised Nigerians? Where are the Compressed Natural Gas, CNG, buses? Merely after six months, the Students Loan Scheme was suspended indefinitely.
On the other hand, Tinubu and his officials are pretending as if things are normal. He has offered generous packages to the National Assembly and Judiciary. Meanwhile, the Police and other security agencies arrest, charge protesting Nigerians with treasonable felonies and clamp them in jails.
Tinubu and other political leaders should be reminded that what matters is applause of Nigerians who elected them, not institutions that front the interests of the imperialist West.