Jimmy Cliff’s masterpiece “It’s a long way to travel, it’s a rough, rough road to cross” talks about life not being a “bed of roses.” The International Monetary Fund [IMF], is saying nearly the same thing when it warns that Nigerians are likelier to “face tougher” economic conditions in the near future than they do now because “rising food and transportation costs continue to squeeze household incomes.”
It tries to give its prediction a context. According to the bank, the geopolitical conflict involving US-Israel and Iran is a contributor to what it is seeing ahead. “The immediate effect” of that war “will be quite a bit of pressure, including on food security, either through the limited availability of fertilizer, expensive fertilizer, or even more immediately, as transportation costs have gone up, it’s going to raise the cost of food and so quite a bit of dislocation. We’re already seeing quite a lot of increase in transportation prices that people are facing already. Transportation costs are very high for people in urban areas, rural areas even more so.”
Speaking for the IMF, Mr. Abebe Selassie, its director of the African Department, said last week in New York, “We are already seeing quite a bit of a pinch from the crisis on people. It is making life difficult for people.” On how governments, including Nigeria’s, should respond, he stressed the importance of maintaining reform momentum despite limited fiscal space. “What is it that governments can do given the limited fiscal space? First point I need to make is we shouldn’t underestimate just how much governments have done to try and position themselves better to weather more of these shocks,” he said. He noted that recent reforms have helped stabilize economies. ” “Steps have been taken to stabilise debt, to reduce fiscal deficits. So that stabilization, I think, helps now when another shock like this comes, because there is a little bit more scope to try and defray the cost.”
I am tempted to shout “IMF, here you go again on Nigeria!” The same IMF that prescribes the measures struggling economies should take is now saying now you have to pull your belt tighter because the light at the end of the tunnel won’t be seen for a long time yet. The darkness will get darker as you grope your way along the tunnel. Well, IMF, let me tell you that your warning, to hundreds of millions of ordinary Nigerians, is no warning at all. Your people, probably, didn’t listen to the popular Nigerian Afro musician Fela’s song “Suffer, suffer for earth, enjoy for heaven.” That was in the late 1970s. This is to say a good majority of my country men and women have quartered poverty as their guest for 56 years now. They have learnt its ways too: they talk and act as it does. The same Fela says “suffering and laughing.” This is the language of poverty. So what am I saying? It’s that we have lived long enough with poverty to understand its texture and content. It’s as thick as tarpaulin used to cover heavy duty vehicles, only not thick enough to protect one from the pangs of biting hunger or prevent illness and death.
The IMF says Nigeria is managing its debt overhang well. Really? A country that spends over 90% of is GDP on external debt servicing, not on mitigation of poverty, must be doing a terribly fine job of resource management! The government of today has taken a lot more foreign loans in its first four years than did its predecessor in 8 years, those apparently to deliver a country flowing with milk and honey. But instead of this Canaanite bounty, it is malnourishment that sits on the dining table in every home. The IMF also talks of the Nigerian government getting more receipts from its oil as a result of turbulence in the Arabian Gulf region. True and this should be a blessing but no, it isn’t. Or will not. Because politicians in power will steal it all. Remember, elections are less than a year away. The money inflow will be stolen and used to bribe election officials and buy voters’ ballots. In this sense, the IMF has got its reading of the Nigerian situation right. Things will get worse before they get better.
