World Bank

By Abdullahi Mukhtar Algasgaini

The World Bank has described Gombe State as a model for other states in Nigeria for its remarkable achievements in implementing numerous development projects and programmes. 

The World Bank Country Director for Nigeria, Dr Ndiame Diop, made the commendation during a courtesy visit to Governor Muhammadu Inuwa Yahaya at the Gombe Governor’s Lodge in Abuja.

Dr Diop, who appreciated the commitment of Gombe State to executing World Bank-supported projects across critical sectors such as education, healthcare, infrastructure, environment, agriculture, and water resources, noted that Governor Inuwa Yahaya’s approach has not only accelerated development but has also demonstrated a clear example of effective governance and accountability in the utilization of funds.

Among the standout projects mentioned by the WB country director were the Nigeria COVID-19 Action Recovery and Economic Stimulus (NG-CARES) programme, the Rural Access and Mobility Project (RAMP), the SPTAS and the Sustainable Urban and Rural Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene (SURWASH), which he noted have significantly improved the well-being of citizens by enhancing infrastructure, increasing access to clean water, and boosting economic opportunities.

Dr Diop emphasized that Gombe’s commitment to these projects has set a high standard for other states in Nigeria, adding that the World Bank now sees the state as a successful model of partnership that effectively addresses local challenges while fostering sustainable growth and development.

Dr. Ndiame Diop, however, also pointed out areas where the state could further strengthen its efforts, especially as some of the ongoing projects are approaching completion.

 He emphasized the need for sustained momentum and strategic planning to ensure that the impact of these projects continues to be felt even after they wind down. 

He stressed that Gombe must take proactive steps to consolidate the gains already made by institutionalizing reforms and integrating them into the state’s development agenda. This, he noted, would ensure that the benefits of these programmes are not only sustained but scaled up for greater long-term impact. 

He assured that the World Bank remains committed to supporting Gombe State in these efforts and encouraging the government to explore new avenues for collaboration that would address emerging challenges and ensure the continuity of progress in key areas.

Governor Inuwa Yahaya acknowledged these observations in his remarks and reassured Dr. Diop that his administration is fully committed to restrategizing.

He expressed optimism that with continued partnership and innovation, Gombe State would maintain its developmental trajectory and deepen the successes achieved through ongoing and future projects.

He highlighted the importance of strategic partnerships with international organizations like the World Bank in driving progress and providing much-needed services to the people of Gombe State in line with his Development Agenda. 

Governor Inuwa Yahaya emphasized that the state’s priorities are fully aligned with its development agenda, and Gombe remains committed to leveraging World Bank projects and initiatives from other development partners to achieve its goals. 

He pointed to the Network 11-100 project, which is being executed in collaboration with RAMP, the ACReSAL project and the SPTAS programme, as clear examples of the state’s success through its strong partnerships with the World Bank.

He reiterated that his government will remain focused on impactful projects that improve the quality of life for all citizens, especially in areas such as education, health, agriculture, infrastructure and human capital development.

By Uzair Adam Imam

Shehu Sani, the former Senator representing Kaduna Central, has raised the alarm over the suffocating debt burden gripping Kaduna State under the administration of former Governor Nasir El-Rufai.

Sani expressed regret that his warnings against El-Rufai’s aggressive borrowing were ignored, leading the state into a financial crisis of significant proportions.

Speaking to reporters, Sani highlighted the dire consequences of the debt accumulation, emphasizing that if his advice had been heeded, the state would not be grappling with the current predicament.

He recalled facing criticism for opposing a $350 million World Bank loan sought by the El-Rufai administration, foreseeing the looming challenges now faced by the state.

Governor Uba Sani, in a recent town hall meeting, disclosed that the state inherited a staggering debt of $587 million, ₦85 billion, and ₦115 billion in contractual liabilities from the previous administration.

This heavy financial burden has severely hampered the state’s ability to meet its financial obligations, including salary payments.

The current administration disclosed that a substantial portion of the state’s federal allocation is being diverted toward servicing the debt, leaving insufficient funds for essential expenditures such as salary payments.

With the sharp increase in exchange rates, the amount being repaid has almost tripled, exacerbating the financial strain on the state.

Out of the N10 billion received as federal allocation in March, N7 billion was deducted to service the state’s debt, leaving only N3 billion available.

However, this amount falls short of covering the state’s monthly salary bill of N5.2 billion, further exacerbating the financial crisis.

Sani cautioned that the repercussions of the state’s debt burden are now being felt acutely, underscoring the urgent need for concerted efforts to address the financial challenges facing Kaduna State.

By Mohammad Qaddam Sidq Isa (Daddy)

Now that Nigeria has finally embarked on the total implementation of the Washington Consensus package of neoliberal economic policies, what becomes of the country’s economy, in the long run, remains to be seen. 

As a product of consensus among the Washington-based World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the United States Department of the Treasury, the package was purportedly designed to guide developing countries bedevilled by protracted economic crises to recovery and achieve sustainable economic development. 

Also, as a capitalist template with inherent and unmistakable lopsidedness in favour of the rich and those with access to public resources, the package encourages governments to literally but gradually wash their hands of the critical economic sectors in favour of profit-oriented local and foreign investors.

Under pressure from neoliberal international financial institutions, successive Nigerian governments have gone to various extents in selective and partial implementation of the package, triggering rounds of controversy. 

However, now with the country going fully and irreversibly capitalist, there is no more time to waste in criticising capitalism and romanticising some obsolete socialist and populist ideas that are no longer realistic. After all, the reform policies can still work out if the federal government pursues requisite measures, which include, among other things, total transparency in governance, governance cost-cutting and prioritisation of the strategic sectors of the economy that have a direct bearing on people’s lives. 

In other words, for the reform to be effective, governance at all levels must be too transparent to accommodate any act of corruption; and anti-corruption measures, including appropriate punishments, must be in force and deterrent enough to deter any would-be perpetrator. 

Likewise, appropriate governance cost-cutting measures must be implemented judiciously to save resources without prejudice to productivity and efficacy.   

Equally, public spending must strictly follow the public’s priorities that entail appropriate investments in strategic sectors with clear short, medium and long-term goals measured not by mere figures but by their real effect on people’s living conditions. 

With these and other requisite measures in place, the investment atmosphere in the country will be transparent and competitive enough to attract local and foreign investors with appropriate job-creating investments that would facilitate real and sustainable economic development. 

That way, and with time, the local and foreign rent-seeking opportunists and profiteers, who have dominated the business sphere in the country, making hugely disproportionate returns compared to their real investments, will have to follow suit to remain relevant or simply lose out. 

Unless the Tinubu administration pursues these measures with appropriate commitment, the reform will end up counterproductive, thus making life even more unbearable to most Nigerians. At the same time, a tiny politico-business clique continue to wallow in abundance.

Interestingly, there has been conspicuous silence on the part of our local West-admiring Washington Consensus apologists, who have advocated total capitalist reform as the only panacea to the country’s persistent underdevelopment. Ordinarily, having passionately advocated it, they should now feel morally obliged to show some understanding, or at least fake it, over the ensuing escalating hardship in the country. 

Besides, though supposedly experts in economics and other related fields, none have developed a viable alternative economic recovery package or even introduced viable inputs to the Washington Consensus package to make it relevant to our peculiar circumstances and other underlying challenges.

Mohammad Qaddam Sidq Isa (Daddy) wrote from Dubai, UAE. He can be reached via mohammadsidq@gmail.com.

By Muhammad Aminu and Uzair Adam Imam

A Senior Lecturer at the Department of Mass Communication, Bayero University, Kano, Dr Ibrahim Siraj Adhama, has urged journalists to fact-check figures to change the narratives by the media that paint Northern Nigeria black. 

Adhama stated this at a One-Day Workshop for Early-Career Journalists on Reporting Northern Nigeria, Fake News and Journalism Ethics organized by a Kano-based online media organization, The Daily Reality. 

The workshop, which was held at Bayero University, Kano, was organized by the management team of The Daily Reality Newspaper to groom journalists in Northern Nigeria on reporting.

He said our northern reporters should have apparatuses to re-examine statistics by the World Bank and IMF, among others, before reporting them for public consumption. 

Adhama, who spoke on “Issues in Reporting Northern Nigeria: A Framing/Agenda Setting Perspective, said the north was represented in media as economically and educationally backward with a high number of out-of-school children. 

He said, “We need to stop swallowing statistics about us. Most of these statistics by the World Bank, IMF, etc., will never favour us. 

“Thus, we should have an apparatus to re-examine them before reporting them,” he added.

Speaking on how those reports affect Hausa-Muslim northerners and, by extension, other ethnic groups, Adhama maintained that all the things we read about us in the Southern media were in themselves, despite claiming objectivity, subjective.

By Zayyad I. Muhammad

Taxes and royalties collection is a fundamental avenue for a government to generate revenues to fund infrastructure and human capital development.

Adamawa State needs other sources of revenue apart from the free petro-dollar from the centre. The state is poor, with a fragile economy, including thousands of unemployed youths and people engaged in unproductive jobs.

The World Bank says – most developing countries with fragile economies “often face the steepest challenges in collecting taxes.”

There is a correlation between the timing of introducing new taxes, peoples’ economic strength and politics. No government can survive local politics if it introduces new taxes at the wrong time- especially when it faces a re-election bid. Governor Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri is seeking re-election in the 2023 governorship election.

Governor Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri’s introduction of a new cattle tax regime appears ill-timed, unplanned, and poorly communicated to the concerned people. So many explanations from the Governor’s aides, yet no one understands them because the basics in tax administration were left out – new tax collection should be optimized, but with minimal burden on the taxpayers, it should be fair & equitable, and at the appropriate time.

The Adamawa state government said that the ‘Adamawa State Agribusiness Support Programme (ADAS)’ is designed to take full advantage of the agricultural opportunities within the state and will focus on three areas of the Crop Value chain, Livestock and Aquaculture. The government further said – the Agric bond will draw twenty-five billion Naira annually, which will be used to offset many of the state’s liabilities and loans, and open a window for generating huge revenue as well as galvanizing the market in the Agric business, especially the livestock subsector” including the upgrade of cattle markets in Mubi, Ganye, Song, Gombi, Ngurore, Tungo, Malabu, and Wuro Bokki.

The Fintiri government failed to do its homework in two areas – balancing the economic needs and political necessity. The cattle tax is as historic as northern Nigeria. The five thousand Naira (N5,000) imposed on every cattle is exorbitant and unaffordable according to many people in the business

On the other hand, there are thorny politics associated with the cattle tax’, and the people related to the business are complex and critical in the socio-political settings of northern Nigeria, thus before tinkering with the tax, there is a significant requirement for discussion, engagements, and understandings. The livestock business is a vital sector, so to speak!  as a result of poor timing and lack of discussion with stakeholders on the new increase in the cattle tax, the Mubi cattle market, one of the biggest in the north, didn’t operate last week. The security agents sealed the market on Tuesday, September 13, 2022.

Well, the Governor has found himself in a catch-22 situation because the upward review on tax for cattle and grains was one of the conditions the government must fulfil in accessing the capital market’s 100 billion naira agribusiness bond. Governor Fintiri has already collected 25 billion Naira from the 100 billion. And the investors are the ones to be collecting the taxes

Governor Fintiri is a history, policy, and strategy student, but often some of his decisions lack political strategy. He doesn’t have good political advisers or seeks any advice most of the time.

Zayyad I. Muhammad writes from Abuja, 08036070980, zaymohd@yahoo.com.

By Muhammad Aminu

At least 614 public secondary schools in Kano State will be renovated through the World Bank funded project called ‘Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment (AGILE).

The project which will be implemented by the Schools-Based Management Committees (SBMCs) of the benefiting schools has budgetted N1.8 billion naira so far.

The Deputy Project Coordinator of the programme, Nasiru Abdullahi, stated this during a courtesy visit to the Emir of Bichi, Nasiru Bayero, alongside other staff of the project on Thursday, 11th August, 2022 in Bichi.

“The SBMC committee has community and religious leaders, representation from self-help organization, and students, among others.

“The Principal is the secretary of the committee who knows the problems of the school better,” he said.

He said that the funds had already been credited into the bank accounts of the Schools-Based Management Committees, SBMCs, of the participating schools in the State.

According to him, the SBMCs members had been trained on the key priorities of their schools for the attainment of the desired objective.

He noted that each school received an amount of money based on the nature of project it will undertake.

“Close to N1.8 billion has been granted to the schools, which is half of what the schools will get, in order to ensure effective utilisation of the funds.

“Any school that finished its project will get the balance for the remaining project.

“The money is in the account of each of the benefiting schools. A school will come to AGILE to get clearance, which it will take to bank and withdraw the money,” he said

The deputy coordinator further revealed that the project is targeting close to 38,000 girls from vulnerable households for Conditional Cash Transfer which will be followed by training on digital skills.

He said that the girls would be trained on skills that would assist them to become self reliant in their maritall homes.

He, therefore, solicited for the support of the traditional ruler for the success of the project.

On his part, the Emir vowed to support the project wholeheartedly and urged all other relevant stakeholders to intensify efforts in improving the capacity of teachers.

“We are not saying construction is not good, but the teachers who will impart the knowledge to the students need to be improved.

“More teachers should also be recruited, and trained regularly to acquaint them with modern teaching techniques,” he advised.

He called on parents to desist from withdrawing girls from schools for marriage, counselling that girls should proceed to higher education after secondary schools.