Tinubu Romances With World Bank’s Policy -By Ibrahim Mustapha Pambegua

Since the time he was inaugurated as the 16th head of state, president Bola Ahmed Tinubu, fine-tuned his policies towards neoliberalism. Under neoliberal or capitalism, state allows market driven economy, embraces deregulation, removes subsidy, privitises public enterprises and above all devaluates its currencies. The proponent of neoliberal policies such as world bank and IMF believe that, state has little role to play in the management of the economy.

The state is expected to provide an enable environment for the private sector to thrive. Until the late 80’s, Nigerian economy was structured along socialist system. Government, through public enterprise such as NEPA,RAILWAY, WATER BOARD, NIGERIAN AIR WAY etc render essential services to Nigerians at affordable price. The public enterprises were primarily established by government to provide good and services without profit making. Socialist policies championed and implemented by governments in those days had assisted greatly towards the improvement of living condition of Nigerians.

The Babangida’s military government through its structural Adjustment programs imposed by the world Bank, erode the gains recorded in the early 80’s by socialist governments. What Nigerians witnessed during IBB’s SAP was the privitization of public enterprises, deregulation of down stream sector and removal of subsidy in health and education sector. Ever since, any government that comes to power embraces and implements neo-liberal policies hook, line and sinker. But the buck always stop at the table of our political leaders who have the penchant or taste of anything foreign debts. Foreign loans are nothing but dead trap set to developing countries by Western power. The ones from bretton woods institutions’ in particular come with strict condition such as: subsidy removal, privatization, devaluation of currencies and above all hike in taxes. One recalls, the immediate past administration of Buhari incurred debt amounted to 77 trillions. In his eight years rule, Buhari had reached out to many foreign and domestic creditors and obtained trillions of naira loans. At the tail end of his government, the world Bank granted $18,000,000 loans to pay palliatives to Nigerians, in anticipation of petroleum subsidy removal.

President Ahmed Tinubu during his inauguration speech stated that “Subsidy is gone” this led to the major oil marketers including the NNPCL to adjust or increase the price of PMS to#550 per litter. The decision by the Tinubu administration to remove subsidy was based on the erroneous believed that, Subsidy benefit the rich rather than the poor. The hasty removal of subsidy without rolling out any tangible palliatives to cushion the likely consequences by the government has increased inflation and pushed many Nigerians into poverty. The world Bank which supports subsidy removal has released a damning figure of 4 millions Nigerians who were condemned to poverty in the last three months. The Bank also stated that, by the end of the year, another 7.4 millions Nigerians are likely to slide to poverty. Since the removal of subsidy, small and medium enterprises(SME’S) such as barbing saloon and other businesses which rely on petroleum have folded like pack of cards. Many youths have been thrown out of jobs. Civil servants who expect pay rise before the Subsidy removal have been groaning in difficulties. Their little salary end of in transportation. This has dampened their morale and will affect productivity.

While Nigerians are yet to recover from the shock of subsidy removal, another bad news filtered the air that there will be hiked in electricity tariff this month. The news from DISCO comes at a wrong time when Nigerians hardly enjoy 10 hours uninterrupted power supply. Advance countries such as: UK and US that preach subsidy removal to developing countries, including Nigeria, hardly adopt it in their respective countries. We have seen how they subsidised PSM and other agricultural products in a bid to alleviate the suffering of their citizens. One wonders, why Nigeria always rushes to implement policies package and deliver to it by the bretton woods institutions and other Western countries. In the early 80’s, south-east Asian countries: Taiwan and Korea opposed and refused to accept neoliberal policies of the world Bank. Today, these countries have a success story to tell. They have economically developed and have the highest per-capita income. This is in contrast with Nigeria which implemented SAP during Babangida’s military junta. Structural Adjustment programs (SAP), had failed to solve Nigeria economy woes. Instead, it added more problems to the country. It encouraged corruption deepened poverty and widened inequality.

President Ahmed Bola Tinubu should watch his steps as he dances to the tune of bretton woods institutions’. He needs to be advised that neoliberal policies have never solved any of the African problems and will not become a magic wand for economy growth and development of Nigeria. Lessons derived from SAP failures are enough to make him and his advisers to ponder. There is no gainsaying the facts, Nigerian problems demand home growth economy policies developed by our local economy experts.

Ibrahim Mustapha Pambegua, Kaduna state. 08169056963.