The general impression in the southern states of Nigeria that there has been a lull in the activities of the World Bank in the region has been confirmed.
The President of the World Bank Group, Jim Yong Kim, has explained that the bank had been concentrating on northern Nigeria in line with President Muhammadu Buhari’s request. Mr. Kim and the Managing Director, International Monetary Fund, IMF, Christine Lagarde, who spoke at separate news conferences in Washington DC, US, also advised President Buhari to invest in things that would enhance economic growth.
Mr. Kim said, “You know, in my very first meeting with President Buhari he said specifically that he would like us to shift our focus to the northern region of Nigeria and we’ve done that. Now, it has been very difficult. The work there has been very difficult.
“I think Nigeria, of course, has suffered from the dropping oil prices. I think things are just now getting better. But the conversation we need to have with Nigeria, I think, is in many ways related to the theme that I brought to the table just this past week, which is investment in human capital. The percentage of the Gross Domestic Product that Nigeria spends on healthcare is less than one percent.”
The World Bank boss stated, “Despite that, there is so much turbulence in the northern part of the country, and there is the hit that was taken from the drop in the oil prices. Nigeria has to think ahead and invest in its people. Investing in the things that will allow Nigeria to be a thriving, rapidly growing economy in the future is what the country has to focus on right now.”
Mr. Kim also said, “Focusing on the northern part of Nigeria, we hope that as commodity prices stabilise and oil prices come back up, the economy will grow a bit more. But very, very much important is the need to focus on what the drivers of growth in the future will be.”According to the World Bank boss, the bank will invest in human capital in other parts of Africa in order to prepare the continent for the next phase of growth.
However, Mr. Kim’s explanations have opened a can of worms. Various groups in the Southern states have been reacting to the latest disclosure. For starters, the Southern Leaders Forum (SLF) has condemned the alleged directive by President Buhari to the World Bank to concentrate on northern Nigeria.
In a statement signed by Chief Guy Ikokwu for the South-East; Senator Bassey Henshaw for the South-South and Mr. Yinka Odumakin for the South-West, the forum said “This directive, without mincing words, is sectional, discriminatory, divisive and against the laudable promise of President Buhari at his inauguration that he would not be beholden to anyone as he was elected to be the president of everybody.
“Giving instructions to the World Bank to concentrate on a section of the country where the president hails from throws a knife at the heart of our nationhood and challenges the hackneyed expression that the ‘unity of Nigeria is settled’. There can never be any rational way such a request should be made by a president with a pan-Nigerian mandate. The only explanation that would have convinced us was if we were told that such a discussion did not take place at all.”
The southern leaders said they would not have raised any alarm if the Word Bank chief had stated that the request was to pay special attention to the North-East, as they were sympathetic to the devastation caused there by the Boko Haram insurgents.
“We have since seen figures from projects done in the country by the World Bank within the tenure of the administration, which show that about $1 billion worth of jobs are specifically for the North-East, while about $2.9 billion worth of projects is for the whole of the country, including the northern states. Just as the North-East deserves special attention, so also do the South-South, South -East and South-West, especially as the repayment of these facilities will mostly come from these zones.”
The African Democratic Congress (ADC) also decried the alleged President’s directive, saying while it recognised the need for special attention for the North-East based on the devastation caused there by terrorists over the years, it was wrong for the president to direct the World Bank or any international aid meant for the country to be focused on a particular zone.
The National Chairman of ADC, Chief Ralph Nwosu said if, for whatever reason, President Buhari directed the World Bank to focus on the North-East “he must realise that whatever the World Bank is giving as a form of aid to a particular section of the country would be reciprocated by Nigeria in whatever form and when it comes to that, it is not only the section that benefitted that would reciprocate but the country.”
In the meantime, federal government officials have been trying to downplay the essence of the presidential directive, arguing that what happened in the Northeast zone affected the entire region.
