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Home Editorial

Avoidable controversy over Buhari’s World Bank ‘directive’

26th October 2017
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The raging controversy over President Muhammadu Buhari’s directive to the World Bank President, Jim Yong Kim, to concentrate the institution’s economic development efforts in Nigeria on the Northern part of the country boldly underscores the widespread mistrust and disaffection among the country’s geo-political zones. The traction which the directive gained in the public space and the anger it elicited in some parts of the country are affirmations of the fact that Nigerians hardly see the country as one.

This unhealthy scenario is, unfortunately, a fallout of the widespread belief that the Federal Government has been unduly partial to the northern part of the country, where President Buhari hails from, with regard to political appointments and the siting of projects. The president must, therefore, be careful to avoid statements and actions that portray him as placing the interest of the North above those of the rest of the country, as he is the president of the entire country. Nigerians must also be nationalistic, less ethno-centric, and empathetic on the devastation of the North-East by the Boko Haram terrorist group, which has attracted aid and special interventions from even other parts of the world. 

Although presidential aides have said that Buhari’s directive to the World Bank chief was “twisted”, we believe that the president probably uttered the statement on account of the massive destruction of public facilities in some parts of the North by the Boko Haram insurgents. It is unfortunate that the statement was widely understood as calling for special attention to the entire northern geopolitical zones at the expense of the southern parts of the country.

The said directive was reportedly issued at a July 2015 meeting with the World Bank chief in Washington DC, in the United States, with about six state governors in attendance. Some of these personalities have since come out to assert that Buhari’s good intention for the rehabilitation of the beleaguered North-East region was taken out of context. In any case, a follow-up meeting in 2016 which involved the representatives of the World Bank, European Union and the Office of the Vice President in a Recovery and Peace Building Assessment Report on the six states affected the most by the Boko Haram insurgency found that public and private infrastructure and estates were devastated to the tune of nine billion dollars.

The urgent need to rehabilitate the ravaged parts of the North-east is not in doubt, but what many were ready to question was the wisdom in a presidential directive to develop a section of the country to the exclusion of others. This is where the controversy becomes needless, or at least avoidable. The President, as the “father of the nation,” is unlikely to have intended that the North should be developed to the exclusion of other parts of the country. If anyone holding such a high office were even to give such a directive, it would be difficult to execute, given the checks and balances of our democracy.

It would, perhaps, be useful to recall that the president’s first official visit after his inauguration was to Cross River State to launch the Calabar trans-national highway, which off-shoot resulted in the assignment by the same President Buhari of a Project Advisor for the Bakassi Deep Sea Port project. The implications of the project are vast for the economy of the particular state and the entire South-south region.        

While it is, indeed, true that the Boko Haram insurgency left most of the North-east region with economic and human devastation the magnitude of which still daunts the mind, other regions of the country, especially the South-east and the South-south, have their own tales of woe. The former, with its environmental challenges and the adverse effects of the civil war, still reels in neglect and requires the equivalent of a Marshall Plan to resuscitate it. The South-south region, too, requires no less, given the harrowing history of oil exploitation and the telltale damage to human and environmental life.

So, while the President is right to draw the attention of the World Bank and other such development institutions and partners to the urgent situation in the North-east, the rest of the country has a right, too, to be included in the scheme of things. And the President must oblige them.

We believe that the president is aware of this heavy burden that he bears and must seek ways to communicate it appropriately at all times. He must go beyond mere platitudes to swift actions that eloquently communicate this. Our nation tends to be perpetually on the brink and the bonds that hold us together are fragile. A wise leader would be mindful of these fault lines, and find a way to deftly navigate the labyrinthine challenges to our unity. 

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Comments 1

  1. Avatar Dr. Uche Kalu says:
    3 years ago

    If this silly treatise is supposed to serve as an attempt at damage control,then the author has failed woefully because it is coming too late and besides,Nigerians know too well, who President Buhari really is.
    The so called Boko Haram is after all the creation of the Sharia North and President Buhari is one of the
    god-fathers of that Terrorist Killer Squads.
    President Buhari is on record to have publicly declared his commitment to seeing Sharia implemented all
    over the country and that is exactly what the Boko Haram insurgency is all about.
    The President also equates the Boko Haram with our N’Delta Environmentalists,the MEND and had on many occasions called for a blanket amnesty for that same Islamic Terrorist Killer Squads.
    The deployment of STF against these Hausa/Fulani/Kanuri Muslim Terrorists by the previous Administration of
    Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, was seen as an invasion of the Islammic North by President Buhari,who was
    also vehemently opposed to the declaration of State of Emergency in the North East.
    The fact of the matter is that President Buhari is an anti- democrat,a corrupt coupist, an ethnic-Islamo-chauvinist,a forger of certificate,an irredentist, a mass-murderer, a sympathiser and god-father of the Boko Haram et al.
    As a matter of fact,Mallam Muhammadu Buhari is neither academically qualified nor morally fit to be heading a multi- cultural,a multi-ethnic and a multi -Religious country of nations like ours.
    Well according to a Greek Philosopher, Socrates, ” When the wise refuse to rule,they suffer the misrule of
    fools.”
    In this particular case, a lot of wise and eminent Nigerians had advised President Jonathan to accept defeat
    rather than contest the result of the last Presidential Election,even though Buhari never won the Election hands down,because they wanted to avoid yet another civil war.
    Buhari was therefore,simply imposed upon us after an Election that was marred by irregularities,like non-dlivery of PVCs, surplus PUs in the North, a complete disfranchisement of the South East and South South Geo-Political Zones,lots of under age voters in Buhari’s North et al.
    Today,President Buhari is running the most expensive and corrupt Government in the world.
    Come to think about that,the rate at which Buhari’s Government is borrowing money from abroad is quite very alarming,and that is just another form of corruption. Lots of the monies is certainly gonna filter into the pockets
    of the members of APC ruling Party.
    Who is going to bear the burden of the debts that our current Government is incurring today?
    Certainly not Buhari and members of his Government.The debts will be inherited by the generations to come.
    There are lots of problems facing the country that the occasion calls for some immediate actions.
    The ultima ratio now, is to immediately start an impeachment proceedings against the President before it is too
    late.
    Oh yes! Our Fatherland must be rid of this Islamic bigot and an erstwhile rogue usurper of power,who in a normal clime, has no right whatsoever to be participating in any of our Democratic disapensations.
    Buhari must go jare.
    No to the status quo ante bellum!
    Down with Hausa/Fulani Islamic Hegemony!!
    All Hail Biafra,the Land of the Rising Sun!!!

    Reply

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