November 03, (THEWILL) – Nigerians are reeling on the throes of untold hardship, perhaps never expected at this stage of their national life. The situation is the direct fallout of reforms undertaken by the President Bola Tinubu-led Federal Government, in compliance with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The two Brenton Wood Institutions had compelled Nigerian authorities to embark on structural reforms as a condition for the needed bailout amid Nigeria’s myriad of economic woes, which intensified in the nine years of the All Progressives Congress (APC)- led federal government since 2015.
Consequently, the World Bank and the IMF have provided Nigeria with facilities as the country goes cap in hand to find a solution to its battered economy. In the process, the Bola Tinubu Administration has borrowed a staggering $6.45 billion from the World Bank within just 16 months.
This figure has surged following the recent approval of three new loans totalling $1.57 billion for various development projects nationwide. The total amount of loans approved by the World Bank over the past five years has reached an alarming $24.088 billion.
As the government continues to seek financial assistance, the country also obtained the resource-backed $3.3 billion facility from the Afriexim Bank in 2023 to stabilize the naira.
This has raised questions about the sustainability of Nigeria’s mounting debt profile now over N143 trillion, amid scourge of the Breton Wood Institutions-backed structural reforms.
The fundamental reforms which hinge on the removal of fuel subsidy, the floating of the naira and implementing cost-reflective tariff for electricity distribution companies have pushed the country close to a hyper-inflation economy, raising inflation rate to 32.7 per cent in October 2024.
Incidentally, the reforms prescribed by the Breton Wood Institutions have turned out bitter pills the citizens must swallow to survive the consequence of years of fiscal mismanagement and corruption in the country’s leadership, culminating in Nigeria overtaking India as the poverty capital of the world.
An especially worrying dimension is the impact on food production – given the over 300 per cent rise in food commodities since mid-2023, resulting in hunger, malnutrition and misery suffered by millions of Nigerians.
The deputy country director of the Food and Agricultural Orgaisation (FAO), Salisu Mohammed, said recently that more than 1.8 million Nigerians are at the risk of high food insecurity.
Also, Cindy Mc-Cain, executive director of the United Nations World Food Programme, has reported that the UN agency needs a sum of $228 million to meet the food and nutrition needs of 1.6 million people in the North East of Nigeria over the next six months.
It is noted that the current state of food security is threatened by the continuous intensification of insecurity alongside economic shocks, floods, and high cost of fuel resulting in excruciating hardship which sparked a public protest in August.
Amazingly, the economic hardship arising from the hard policies it pushes the government to adopt, the same World Bank predicts that millions of Nigerians are expected to fall into poverty due to inflation and slow economic growth.
The Federal Government should be transparent and sincere in its intervention programmes aimed at ameliorating the hardship that confronts the citizens.
The World Bank’s recommended actions to help Nigeria reduce poverty, including restoring macroeconomic stability, expanding social protection, creating wage jobs, building human capital, and boosting productivity in farm and non-farm household enterprise should be put into practice than mere rhetoric.
There is need for the leaders to shun profligacy while urging the citizens to exercise patience. Re-examining the sequence of the World Bank and IMF recommended reforms may be necessary to ensure that the people do not celebrate more funeral ceremonies than the success of the painful reforms.
