World Bank Loan

If we must get out of the current global financial crisis pretty fast, then we must all apply precision, while we truncate presumptions, sentiments and biases. When we read about those mind blowing figures in the press/mass media, one begins to wonder where they are coming from.

According to our local newspaper – the Guardian of May 13, 2009 …”18 million Nigerians will become poorer in 2009, says World Bank.” From the limited knowledge most of us have about the root cause of this very crisis, one would have expected that the financial regulatory authorities will apply extreme caution in disbursing funds, be it loan, aids or relief. Additionally, alleviation of poverty should be done with sincerity of purpose, rather than do it for formality or political purposes.

To say that 18 million Nigerians will be poorer this year is a serious understatement. This is because in Nigeria over 60% of 150 million populations are unemployed. And before late 2008 when the meltdown hit Nigeria, about 15% of Nigerians were living above the $1 per day index. With the ever increasing birth rate and financial irregularities in Nigeria, the best World Bank can do for the country is a thorough field’s job. And through the field exercise, those who will be engaged in the facts finding work on the streets of Nigeria would have a momentary employment/income. At least we have good indigenous researchers who can do a clean field work, instead of the arm-chair research work often shrouded with presupposition and estimation.

Many Shoddy deals have thieved under the present circumstance where public figures or some opportunists’ data have served as a basis for planning. And this very practice has led us to the middle of nowhere.

Let us tell the truth for once. Many of us are poor not only in Nigeria, but in the rest of the world because a few opportunists want it so. We all can’t be politicians, just as we all can’t be the same thing. Nature made it that things take their turns; I guess it’s to avoid log-jam, chaos and violence. Captivatingly, a few of us are trying to make a fool of nature by instigating everyone to be the same thing. Little wonder irrational minds are quick to go into violent crime and other social vices.

We all know that poverty is perpetually on the rise because of greed, selfishness and insensitivity; grippingly, the solutions to the problems are ever ignored by those who are supposed to remedy the ugly situation. Perhaps, some people take delight in presenting bloating figures of poverty in some parts of our world. While some still enjoy providing imaginary figures, thus, rubbishing every effort at finding a common solution.

With the aid of technology the United Nations (UN) can help the World Bank gather an accurate figure of Nigeria’s poor population; the assumed 18 million is annoying, and cannot help in any development planning. Our leaders have always been working with those fictitious or assumed figures and that is why they never recorded any meaningful development for about fifty years now. Thus, if the World Bank and other donor agencies truly mean to help Nigeria fight poverty, they should help our government out of this delusion. It is never enough to relief a poverty ridden country like Nigeria with funds that have been programmed to drift or trickle into a few private pockets in the name of peoples’ interests.

If 18 million will be poorer at the very dawn of global meltdown, then how impoverished will Nigeria be at the expiration of the financial crisis, which even the World Bank has attested to its unpredictable terminal date? For Poverty to be eradicated in a country like Nigeria, local and national development communication experts must be fully engaged. It is high time the World Bank, identified the true development needs of a people before embarking on any kind of project or even disburse funds. If we must succeed in the fight against poverty in Nigeria and the world at large, then we must be sincere and genuine in our approach.

Ultimately, local participation in all poverty mitigation and development projects must be encouraged. And again, before any such project begun, the initiators should endeavor to do a need assessment of the beneficiaries. Anything short of that is a design to fail, which amounts to putting contributors’ funds into trouble waters. And that of course will neither take the fight against poverty anywhere, nor bring an end to the global financial crisis any time soon.