The only type of lender who willfully and knowingly lends money to people who can never realistically hope to pay it back is a LOAN SHARK. A loan shark carries out predatory lending to vulnerable people who have something that he wants. He knows you cannot pay back
Historically, I’ve never been a fan of invoking neo-colonialism as a reason for the failure of African states. I have always preferred to hold the feet of African leadership to the fire instead.
But sometimes, the empire makes moves that are too blatant. Because can someone explain to me why the IMF is indicating willingness to offer Nigeria a loan (which it hasn’t actually even asked for yet)?
Who looks at a country with a 97% debt service to income ratio, one of the world’s worst multiple taxation/overtaxation problems, an oil theft problem swallowing more than 55% of the country’s officially stated oil production capacity, collapsed foreign remittances due to predatory policy, and a government led by an incontinent drug dealer who spends $500,000 from a food tax account on hotel rooms and exotic hookers for his coke-head son to attend the UNGA with him despite having no official designation – and then says “Hey, let’s lend these guys a few billion dollars! They look like responsible, creditworthy people!” ?
The only type of lender who willfully and knowingly lends money to people who can never realistically hope to pay it back is a LOAN SHARK. A loan shark carries out predatory lending to vulnerable people who have something that he wants. He knows you cannot pay back the N400,000 he lent you at stupid percent interest, and he doesn’t want you to. What he’s actually after is your family land or your daughter. That’s why he takes on a risk that any financial intern analyst with 2 weeks of experience can tell you is unjustifiable.
What does the IMF really want? We know Nigeria is never repaying any such loan in this life or the next one, so what asset are they really after? Is it mining rights for lithium, which is about to become the world’s next big gold rush? Is it land for “carbon credit transfers”? Whatever it is, we know it’s not anything that will enrich or develop the Nigerian people, which is why everyone with a voice must REJECT any move by the Drug Lord to obtain an IMF loan facility that Nigeria does not need and cannot afford.
What Nigeria needs is GOVERNMENT AUSTERITY for one of the most expensive and wasteful governments on the planet (Nigerian legislators get paid significantly more than their American counterparts for example). The IMF cannot see Nigeria’s occupying regime blowing half a million dollars on 6 days of cocaine-fuelled debauchery in New York, and ignore that only to fly the kite of a loan that recommends more taxation for some of the most criminally overtaxed people on the planet.
I have supported IMF-recommended structural adjustment for a different era in Nigeria’s history (late 1980s), but this time is different. If the IMF wants to help, it should produce a working paper detailing how Nigeria can increase efficiency by reducing up to 60% of its annual recurrent budget and investing the savings into power, education, security and healthcare. That’s a structural adjustment I think we can all get behind. Not “austerity for thee, $100,000 strippers for me.”
Nigeria does not need an IMF loan.
