After all of 18 months, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has seen the light. It has arrived at the same conclusion which most Nigerians (without college degrees in Economics) came to within a few days of the “Economic Reform” program of the government in Abuja. It has declared that “renewed hope” simply ain’t working.
The latest outlook report of the IMF for Sub Sahara Africa presented by its Deputy Director, Catherine Patillo, was emphatic that the Nigerian economy is grossly underperforming even by African standards and is “failing to uplift the necessities of life.”
Yet, only a few weeks earlier at the Nigerian Economic Summit, the IMF Chief Economist, Indermit Gill, was widely reported to have said that the Tinubu economic policies are right and in the best long term interest of the country. He ventured to predict that “Nigeria will need to stay the course for 10 to 15 years” in order to reap the rewards of Tinubu’s masterful economic engineering currently in progress!
Between the IMF’s Deputy Director and its Chief Economist, there are many questions begging for answers. For example: What set of data or insights informed the two divergent “expert” opinions separated only by a few weeks? If Economics is still an objective social science, why is the Chief Economist singing a different song from the Deputy Director? Why is the “good medicine” of renewed hope not showing any scientific evidence of improving the condition of its sick patient?
Assuming the Chief Economist was right, how many Nigerians alive today does the IMF estimate would be alive in 10 to 15 years time to harvest the fruits of Tinubunomics? If it took IMF 18 months of crunching data to arrive at a conclusion almost every Nigerian on the street arrived upon at first glance, then what’s the use of PhDs and swanky positions in Bretton Woods?
Now we know for a fact that sometimes the view from the streets is much more accurate and timely in economic matters than the view from air-conditioned corner offices in highrise buildings.
We now also know for a fact that the true loyalty of the IMF (and its twin institution the World Bank) is not to the developing nations of the world. Any leader of the global South who takes economic policy advice from Bretton Woods is doing so at his own risk. For when the chips are down, they will leave him hanging out to dry.
The ultimate test of public policy, and that includes economic policy, is its impact on human lives. If it makes people poorer, sicker and more miserable, then it’s no good – short, medium or long term. There’s no good medicine that first kills its patients and then makes them better afterwards.
The IMF & World Bank consistently recommend one set of policies for the West and a completely different set for the rest of us. For the West, they recommend people-friendly and mass empowerment programs that put money in the pockets of ordinary people, raise the living standard of the average citizen, and protect the most vulnerable. For the rest of us, they recommend people-crushing and mass poverty-inducing policies that claim the lives of the most vulnerable and put money in a few pockets.
Economic history has consistently shown that poverty does not produce prosperity. On the contrary, it cripples human initiative, destroys a society’s value system and depresses man’s capacity for innovation, invention and genuine development. Yet this is what the IMF and World Bank repeatedly prescribes for Africans and other developing nations in the name of structural adjustment and austerity measures.
Time has come for this morally reprehensible practice to stop. Not just for IMF & World Bank but even more importantly for their local agents and proxies whom.they use to actualize their devious schemes. African leaders must realize that only a foolish child burns down his father’s barn on the advice of his playmates. And only a foolish man kills his brother to please his neighbor.
Centuries ago, African chiefs raided neighboring communities and pillaged their own villages for slaves to sell to European slave merchants headed for the Americas. In exchange they got mirrors, hot drinks, bowler hats and umbrellas. Today, African leaders are consciously crippling their own national economies to please subterranean Western and Neocolonial interests. In exchange, they are getting propped up in undeserved positions of leadership and for personal financial gain. What a shame!
Someone should tell African politicians that the strength of their national economies is not measured by the amount of money in their private accounts or even in government coffers. It is only measured by the individual and collective well-being of the ordinary people they lead, especially by the number of people they pull out of poverty and enable to stay above poverty for good.
It is only because imperialism readily finds willing local partners in Africa that it thrives. Japan and Germany (after World War 2), Southeast Asia and now China have proven that once local elites stop being selfish and willing collaborators, foreign manipulation ends. And national development kicks off in earnest.
Today, there is so much glib talk about sustainable development, democracy and universal human rights. In reality, one part of humanity consistently operates from the paradigm that it can thrive only by secretly sabotaging the well-being of other regions. A new world order of genuine collaboration, inclusive prosperity, mutual progress and universal welfare is not only possible but now also overdue. It’s the only way to deliver genuine sustainable development, authentic democracy and truly universal human rights. Otherwise, the failure of some countries will continue to burden the “affluence” of others.
Victor Anazonwu, an author and media practitioner, writes from Lagos.
