As an African leader the best evidence that you are failing your people in the long-run, is if the World Bank and the IMF praise your “reforms”.
Recently a World Bank Delegation visited Nigeria and commended President Tinubu’s reform drives, noting that it is now a global reference point in their discussions with stakeholders.
Sounds great, until you examine the realities of Nigerians on ground and not what institutions say. Then you will realize such praises amount to nothing. Going further, I challenge anyone to:
Research the developmental policies of all advanced countries! Not what they SAY, but what they DID historically to get to where they are today! If you are honest in your research and analysis, you will conclude that not a SINGLE ONE of them wholly followed policies akin to what the World Bank and IMF proposes to Global South countries. Also, there are even no real success stories of the latter emerging from their challenges using these institutional models. See “Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism” by Ha-Joon Chang.
Despite this, many Africans are sheepishly hailing the World Bank’s praise of Nigeria’s “reforms” as something great! As evidence of development and progress! How delusional and illogical many Africans are when it comes to the capacity of calm objective examination against the backdrop of historical evidence.
I say to you: do you know the best way to achieve African nation-building? Listen to EVERYTHING the World Bank and IMF says, then do the OPPOSITE. Then real sovereignty, prosperity and long-term success will be yours!
Do you really believe these institutions want you to reach your developmental peak, to later become a competitor to the Western countries who fund them? Do you not understand the real goal of all their policy proposals? It is to:
1) Provide enough development to keep you mediocre with enough purchasing power to buy the goods and services of advanced countries;
2) Ensure your country becomes a permanent market for secondary goods;
3) Maintain the low prices of raw materials and their exporting;
4) Skillfully undermine every mass industrialization and manufacturing endeavor.
5) Open domestic sectors and critical assets to the mass privatization of foreign capital ownership.
No one can challenge these words without contradicting themselves. For they stand as immovable truth, as ungainsayable facts of objective reality!
African governments even relying on policy reform advice from these institutions is proof of incompetence. Africa, you must use your own brains, think your own original thoughts, and chart your own course to prosperity! Where are your experts, think tanks, and industry specialists locally and in the diaspora? Why the inferiority complex that is so eager to follow the advice of foreigners instead of your own experts? Africa if we wish to progress, we must change this attitude, look within, and follow home-grown developmental policies. Then we will achieve real sovereignty!
~Dr. Ikenna A. Ezealah
JD, PhD, MBA
Builder of the African Future
Nation Upbuilding 