Rethinking World Bank’s Deaf Ear to Nigeria’s Economic Woes (II) 

   BY AJUKOMAIKE OMEHEE

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The World Bank, for all its talk of reform, appears to be more interested in maintaining its financial grip on the country by offering enticing loans that are often misused. Rather than ensuring these loans are properly utilized for national development, the World Bank seems unbothered by how frivolous spending squanders the funds, so long as Nigeria remains indebted. And this raises an important question: how can the World Bank continue pushing for reform when it knows full well that its Nigerian partners have neither the political will nor the moral integrity to implement them? With every bogus loan and every new reform policy, the Nigerian populace is forced deeper into economic misery, while the elite class who benefit from these loans continue their reckless disregard for governance.

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In rethinking World Bank’s deafness to Nigeria’s economic woes, the Bank’s whistling hypocrisy comes full circle when it advocates economic reforms while at the same time glibly reporting that 129 million Nigerians have sunk into poverty. Yet, in spite of more than half of Nigerian population sliding into poverty, “reforms undertaken by Nigeria’s government are ‘essential’ and must stay on course”. What a height of paradox! This glaring contradiction exposes the height of hypocrisy and wickedness that underpins these recommendations. How can the same institution advocating reforms that are clearly exacerbating poverty claim to offer solutions? It is a situation that begs the question: whose interests are truly being served by these policies?

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While the World Bank preaches austerity measures and insists that Nigerians must endure these painful reforms for some ambiguous future benefit, elsewhere in the world, leaders are taking immediate action to protect their citizens from economic hardship. At the point of writing this piece, a headline news flashed across Arise News Television: ‘France to cut prices after protests in Martinique,’ showing a serious government responding directly to the needs of its people. Yet, in Nigeria, the ruling class, compelled by the World Bank’s destructive neoliberal doctrines, seems oblivious to the plight of its citizens. The World Bank’s silence on the realities faced by millions of Nigerians suffering under the weight of its prescriptions is deafening. If governments in Western countries can respond swiftly to their citizens’ grievances, why should Nigerians be forced to endure endless hardship with no clear end in sight? It is a moral failing for the World Bank to continue pushing for reforms that have shown little more than worsening the living conditions of millions, while also ignoring the historical and global precedent for governments intervening with subsidies and price controls to ease the burden on their citizens.

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Nigeria’s ruling elite, along with the World Bank, must reckon with the real cost of these reforms. The 129 million Nigerians living in poverty today are not mere statistics; they speak in clear terms to the human toll of policies that prioritize fiscal discipline over human dignity. It is time to question whether staying the course is truly the solution, or whether it is driving the country further into economic and social collapse. It’s time for the World Bank to re-evaluate not just its policies but the mental capacity of those it entrusts with their implementation in Nigeria. Otherwise, the cycle of economic dysfunction, mismanagement, and increased suffering will only continue, with no meaningful results in sight.

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There is no shame in admitting that subsidies, when properly managed, are a crucial part of maintaining social stability and economic growth. Even the most capitalist economies recognize this. The Nigerian government must, therefore, prioritize the well-being of its citizens over the applause of international institutions. In the end, the World Bank’s recommendations are not the gospel truth. Nigeria must chart its own course, one that balances fiscal discipline with social protection. Otherwise, the nation will continue its downward spiral, driven by policies that benefit a select few at the expense of the many. And as the Igbo proverb reminds us: “He who refuses to learn from the mistakes of others will be forced to learn through his own suffering.” Nigeria is at a crossroads, and its leaders must choose wisely before it’s too late.

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If Nigeria’s leaders truly wish to rescue the country from its current trajectory, they must stop parroting the prescriptions of foreign financial institutions and start addressing the real needs of their people. The World Bank’s call for cost-effective safety nets is not just enough at all. Nigerians need immediate and robust interventions to shield the vulnerable from the brunt of these reforms. If not, the country risks collapsing under the weight of its own mismanagement, aided and abetted by external forces that claim to have its best interests at heart. In the end, the World Bank’s recommendations will continue to ring hollow if they do not take into account the dire conditions Nigerians already face. The call for reforms should be met with equal urgency for human-centered policies that protect lives, not just economies. Nigerians cannot afford to wait 15 years for the fruits of these reforms to materialize. They need solutions now or else, the real doom will be the collapse of their society long before any promised recovery.

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Let us round off this piece with the peril behind applause, the need for Nigeria’s ruling elite to heed mother mosquito’s warning to her toddling young one, and the imperative of taking the advice of all the Ndiame Diop of this world with a trailer of salt! The elated child mosquito flew back to its mother after a flying training session to relive its experience. Happily, it narrated how everybody was clapping for it each time it flew close to their ears. Mother mosquito squirmed with suppressed delight and admonished its little young one: “My dear, what you observed and heard as ‘clapping’ for you was not ovation or applause for your flying skill but desperate efforts by humans to crush you to death for daring to perch on their ears and suck their blood. Next time, learn to be on your guard for beneath those clapping lies a siege by human to ensnare and destroy you.” The tale of the young mosquito, gleefully mistaking lethal claps for applause, is a fitting metaphor for the current situation in Nigeria’s corridors of power.

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Just as the young mosquito mistook danger for admiration, Nigeria’s ruling class seems equally misguided, perceiving the World Bank’s accolades for President Tinubu’s economic reforms as signs of success. What they fail to grasp is that beneath these praises lies a far more sinister reality, an impending economic disaster being orchestrated by global financial institutions indifferent to the human toll of their recommendations. Like the mother mosquito warning her child, it is high time Nigeria’s rulers recognized the difference between genuine support and desperate measures to crush resistance. The World Bank’s outwardly polite applause for the economic reforms is not a sign of endorsement but a subtle executioner’s clap, an attempt to ensure that Nigeria remains ensnared in its web of crippling debt and austerity measures enabled by neoliberal policies. The cost of this misreading is already being felt across the country, with more than half of Nigerian population sinking into poverty and the nation’s economic future hanging in the balance. The harsh economic reforms being implemented in the name of progress are, in reality, sucking the lifeblood out of the very citizens they are meant to uplift. And yet, the ruling class, much like the young mosquito, continues to bask in the illusion of success, unaware that the hands clapping are really seeking to crush their misguided ambitions.

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In the same way that the mother mosquito urged her child to be on guard, Nigeria’s rulers must realize that the World Bank’s accolades are nothing more than a charade. The plastic smiles from these global financial bodies are no different from the fleeting grin of a beheaded goat whose head is thrown into the furnace; it is a macabre spectacle that belies the grim reality that awaits if the World Bank-certified ‘reformists’ continue to chase false praise rather than protect its people from economic ruin. The lesson is clear: whoever has ears, let them listen and take heed, for the stakes are too high to misinterpret danger as admiration. Nigerian ruling elite, shine your eyes!

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OMEHEE, a public affairs analyst writes from Enugu

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(Began from yesterday, Sunday October 20, now concluded)