Okonjo-Iweala, the Nigerian economy and our politicians, by Rotimi Fasan

Nigerians may be struggling to survive at this moment as they have been in the last two and half years since President Bola Tinubu unmoored the economy from the burden of a criminal petrol subsidy regime that benefitted none of the poor Nigerians they were meant for. He abolished a dual foreign exchange system that left the national currency mostly, if not entirely, at the mercy of market forces rather than being artificially strengthened.

These decisions as we all know have largely impoverished the majority of us who are still hoping for a respite from the economic pounding that has been our lot. The important thing about this is that none of those angling to take Tinubu’s job have said that the reforms are unnecessary even if, as is to be expected of politicians working by hindsight, they now say they would have applied the reforms differently. 

In all of this, however, it’s not the harassed Nigerians but the opposition politicians that have been unsettled by the comment of  Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director General of the World Trade Organisation, WTO, that the Nigerian economy has stabilised. She made this factual comment while on a visit to the country, her country, the same one she served as a minister with a dual mandate over the country’s Finance and as Coordinating Minister of the Economy under the administrations of two presidents, Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan. While Abuja relished that approval of the economy, they have not made so much song and dance of it. At least not as much as the anger in the opposition camp would suggest. 

That piece of unvarnished truth from Okonjo-Iweala has been bile on the tongue of those politicians aiming to take up tenancy at Aso Villa in 2027. They and their supporters that had been wired for outrage, both genuine and manufactured, at the slightest provocation have been inconsolable since Okonjo-Iweala spoke last week. She spoke but as a technocrat. She said pretty little on this last visit that she has not said before. Otherwise, she has been consistent in her observations about the Tinubu administration’s handling of the economy. Never mind that organisations like hers, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, have a way of speaking from both sides of their mouths. This we saw nearly a year ago when officials of the IMF appeared to contradict Okonjo-Iweala in her apparent support of the economic policies of the present administration. 

She had praised the economic reforms of Tinubu during her keynote address at the NBA Conference in August last year. She went on in her speech, which she titled: ‘A Social Contract for Nigeria’s Future’, to remind her listeners and the rest of Nigerians that we cannot have socio-economic development without security and spoke against the weaponisation of security. In her words: “We have politicians who believe that the best way to make their opponents look bad is to instigate insecurity, making it look like they can’t govern, regardless of whether this leads to the loss of lives and property of innocent Nigerians.” While this could be read as a subtle support for the effort of the Tinubu government in its fight against insecurity then (and we know the attempts that have been made in recent times to make the government look incompetent in that regard, especially by some politicians from the North), she could also have been speaking from experience. 

Aside what happened to her mother who was kidnapped on account of her duties as a Finance Minister and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, she knows very well how Boko Haram became the monster it has since become due to the manner some politicians in the North weaponised insecurity during the Goodluck Jonathan administration she was a part of. She had no sooner spoken at that conference than the IMF Vice President and Chief Economist, Indermit Gill, demanded that Abuja tighten the economic screw more on Nigerians. For him, Nigeria needs to undergo the painful reforms she had endured in two and a half years for 15 years before we could dream of achieving any economic benefits as did Poland, Norway and Korea. It was like asking that the noose be put on us. 

Mr. Gill had hardly finished speaking when another IMF Deputy Director, Catherine Patillo, mounted the stage from God-knows-where to announce during a so-called stakeholder gathering at the Lagos Business School in November that the Tinubu reforms were not working.  That resonated more with the opposition politicians and their lackeys at the LBS and together they gleefully shared their insight with Nigerians. In one year, three officials of Western economic/financial institutions appeared to have spoken from different angles. But now that Okonjo-Iweala has again told us that the economy has stabilised, the politicians are unhappy and are doing their best to question that claim without actually contradicting her with facts.  Last year they ignored the content of her keynote and chose to praise her as a technocrat. 

It was as if they were either blind or deaf and couldn’t make any sense of the woman’s speech with the manner Nigerians, including opposition politicians heaped praises on her despite her endorsement of the very reforms for which Tinubu became their byword for incompetence.  This year the main opposition leaders, from Atiku Abubakar, Nasir el-Rufai to Rotimi Amaechi and Peter Obi, again played deaf-and-dumb to whatever Okonjo-Iweala said. (By the way, they were thoroughly drubbed at last weekend’s by-election despite their pre-election boasts). She could have been speaking to a statue. They may ignore but they cannot openly question her claim. It was clear she had kind words for Tinubu no matter what we choose to make of those words given her position as a representative of an America-led trade organisation that cannot be described as having our best interest at heart. Any rebuttal is doubly difficult as she can’t be dismissed as a politician.

The point is that despite apparent contradictions from operatives of the IMF,  Okonjo-Iweala has been consistent in her positive disposition to President Tinubu’s handling of the economy. As has been Charles Soludo. This is not what the opposition wants to hear.  Okonjo-Iweala appeared pleased to see Tinubu who received her warmly and she spoke from the heart without malice. With inflation decelerating in the last seven months after a 20-month unbroken acceleration, the naira stabilising, the price of petrol coming down marginally, the recent gains against the insurgents and bandits, there is a sense in which it can be said that some progress has been made and the projected trillion-dollar economy looks possible in five years. If we want a change, we deserve a credible alternative. Not as with musical chairs players. ‘Go and verify that!’  

The post Okonjo-Iweala, the Nigerian economy and our politicians, by Rotimi Fasan appeared first on Vanguard News.