Okonjo-Iweala, Washington DC Consensus and 9ja Economy

Introduction

Finance minister, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has occupied threshold of Nigeria economic policy and management in 3 successive administrations. While her personal qualifications and pedigree are beyond dispute, her experiences and institutional exposures prior to securing the role cannot be dismissed. These institutions and their questionable objectives on Nigerian economy will be addressed later.

In Big Pond

The background to the discourse is the recent past admission by the minister of an NNPC account with JP Morgan bank. Read NNPC JP Morgan Account. The following comments were attributed to her, “Yes, the NNPC has a foreign account with JP Morgan, and they are the ones running it. I don’t operate the account. However, the CBN is aware of the account because all the accounts of government itself are with the CBN. The CBN is the government banker.

“In fairness to the NNPC, if you have been asked to undertake financial transaction on behalf of government, when you are doing a financial transaction, you need an account, that is what I tried to explain to the National Assembly, because they can’t do commercial transaction without it. The issue is not that they have an account with JP Morgan, the issue is when resources get into the account, do they remit it to the government because that is what they need to do.”

Shock & Awe 2.0

Deeper insight would have shed lights into the murky and malfeasant world of Nigerian economy management where personal interests of the powerful, the privileged and government appointees including Dr Okonjo-Iweala triumph. While the minister drooled with platitudes on confirmation of account existence; critical questions of who opened/ran the account, reason for opening/running the account and total figures that passed through the account remained as mysterious as the erstwhile account existence. 

It is apparent that in this instance the minister failed the test of transparency instead deviated into illogical epistemology of roles and duties of institutions as if they are neutral and trivial entities. It is despicable for her to claim ignorance of the account’s existence, it is unpatriotic to deny knowledge as Minister of Finance of the Federal Republic and preposterous to deny linkage to government machine. It will be honourable for her to resign her commission. She will not resign while her truth remains economical.

The wider picture of the economy and its miserable performance into the future remains the wholesale focus of Nigerian strategic interest toward Washington DC consensus based World Bank where Dr Okonjo-Iweala was headhunted from. JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs are some of the arrowheads that execute Washington DC consensus sub-plots. Sadly Nigeria’s strategic interests are not served by Dr Okonjo-Iweala because her institutional experiences are built on ‘shock and awe’ which strategically diminishes the state to benefit World Bank and International monetary Fund (IMF). 

Chile and Argentina are prime examples of countries that paid extraordinary prices in blood as guinea pigs of ‘Consensus’ economic experiments. Current example is Greece on the highway to death as World Bank is part of the ‘Troika’ with EU and IMF harvest her remaining hemoglobin while she remains comatose on life support.

Unfortunately Nigeria is locked fully into this paradigm with anticipation of positive outcome which will never come. Dr Okonjo-Iweala is one of those who use their position to dismantle their national patrimony in favour of foreign interests including JP Morgan. The recent past removal of fuel subsidy is a prime example of ‘shock and awe’. The people do not matter and are not primary variables of economic strategy. It is instructive that the move was made immediately after a visit to Abuja by IMF head, Ms Christine Lagarde following among other charades Dr Okonjo Iweala’s soundbits on infant mortality. 

Conclusion

The battle of emerging geopolitics where China is in ascendancy will become more vicious in Nigeria as US AFRICOM project moves into high gear with recolonisation via militarization of Africa’s strategic resources in the bid to stem Beijing. Dr Okonjo-Iweala will no doubt sympathize with US and the ‘Consensus’ by collaborating to reposition Abuja to remain a ‘bastion of stability’ while millions of Nigerians continue to suffer from economic mismanagement and implementation of retrogressive/discredited economic strategies. For those who cannot distinguish between individual qualification and unpatriotic harbinger of experiential heritage against Nigerian state, wake up and decide whether Nigeria deserves rape and subordination as instruments of (economic) statecraft.