Contrary to President Buhari’s claim on Friday that his discussion with President of the World Bank, Mr. Jim Yong Kim was twisted, a huge chunk of the institution-backed projects in partnership with Nigeria is based in the North.
The latest criticism started when Kim divulged that Buhari asked the bank to concentrate on the North.
But critics argued that the explanation was not tenable because Buhari was not a president of the North or North-East alone and should be canvassing for development of all parts of Nigeria, equally affected by different types of disasters.
Exclusive findings by Punch on the World Bank website showed that out of the 14 World Bank-sponsored projects in the country, seven are exclusively for the North, while six others are meant for the whole nation (South-West, South-South, South-East, North-West, North-East, North Central and North West); and the remaining one is for Lagos State. Titled ‘Projects and Operations’, these projects were listed under June 2015 – June 2017 projects.
The implication is that in addition to solely getting the lion’s share of the projects, the North also shared in the remaining 50 per cent with the South-West, South-East and South-South.
The projects exclusive to the northern region worth $1bn are: Multi-Sectoral Crisis Recovery Project for North-eastern Nigeria ($200m; Borno, Yobe and Adamawa); State Education Program Investment Project ($100m; North-East states); Community and Social Development Project ($75m; Borno, Yobe, Adamawa, Taraba, Bauchi, and Gombe); Youth Employment and Social Support Project ($100m; Borno, Yobe, Adamawa, Taraba, Bauchi, and Gombe States); Additional Financing Nigeria State Health Investment Project ($125m; Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Taraba and Yobe) and the Third National Fadama Development Project ($50m; selected area in the North-East). The seventh northern project worth $350m is for the Kaduna State Economic Transformation Program-for-Results Project $350m. The KSETPRP, which was approved in June 2017, is expected to close on March 31, 2021.
Projects worth $2.9bn were earmarked for the nation which northern states are also expected to benefit from. They are: Better Education Service Delivery for All ($611m); Mineral Sector Support for Economic Diversification Project ($150m); NEITI Reporting Compliance ($0.32m); the Polio Eradication Support Project ($125m); National Social Safety Nets Project ($1.8b); and $200m-Agro-Processing, Agricultural Productivity Enhancement and Livelihood Improvement Support Project specifically designed for Kano, Kaduna, Lagos, Cross River, Kogi, Enugu and three other states.
There was also the Third Lagos State Development Policy Operation ($200m), a stand-alone project which was approved on June 26, 2015 and ended on December 31, 2016.
The World Bank documents did not contain any programme or project specifically designed for the South-East, South-South and the Middle Belt regions since Buhari got into power.
A document containing the details of the project on the bank’s website explained the purpose of the Kaduna project thus: “The development objective of Kaduna State Economic Transformation Programme-for-Results Project for Nigeria is to improve the business enabling environment and strengthen fiscal management and accountability in Kaduna State. This operation is fully aligned with the World Bank. Group’s Country Partnership Strategy for the Federal Republic of Nigeria for FY14–FY17. This Programme-for-Results focuses on increasing the number of jobs in the modern private sector and boosting the productivity of traditional economic sectors. Another important and complementary focus of the PforR is to support Kaduna State to increase its fiscal space and enhance expenditure effectiveness to boost investments in human capital and physical assets sustainably.”
According to the bank’s documents, the $200m-MSCRP, meant for only North-East states, is to “support the government of Nigeria towards rehabilitating and improving critical service delivery infrastructure, improve the livelihood opportunities of conflict and displacement-affected communities, and strengthen social cohesion in the North-East states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa; and in the event of an eligible crisis or emergency, to provide immediate and effective response to the said eligible crisis or emergency.”
Similarly, the SEPIV’s objective is to finance activities to support the Federal Government’s emergency programme for the North-East to address teachers’ needs in conflict-and-displacement-affected areas; strengthen school-level management and accountability for the improvement of education quality through school grants funding; “and to enhance technical assistance to address the needs of the North-East.”
For the CSDP, the World Bank will finance the costs associated with scaling up project activities in Borno, Yobe, Adamawa, Taraba, Bauchi, and Gombe states to support the provision of basic social and natural resource management infrastructure and services to returnees and host communities with the main goal of assisting their resettlement, recovery, and welfare.
The fund, the document said, would also be “used to provide trauma and psychosocial support to returnee households and internally displaced groups and individuals, as a form of social assistance intervention.”
Shedding light on why half of the projects were exclusively allocated to the North and no special projects for the other regions, the World Bank boss at a press conference in Washington DC, on Thursday, had disclosed that the bank focused more on the region based on Buhari’s request.
Reacting, the PDP said the President’s approval of more World Bank projects for the North, as revealed by Kim, was not in the interest of the country.
PDP spokesman, Dayo Adeyeye, said, “We’ve always said Buhari is not acting as the president of the country. He has demonstrated that through his lopsided appointments. That’s all we can say.”
Also, a nationalist and elder statesman, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, told Punch that Kim only confirmed what people already know about Buhari’s preference for the North.
“Is it those he surrounds himself with? Is it about the lopsided appointments he’s made? Buhari telling the World Bank president that more attention should be given to the northern region shows which section of the country matters most to the president. Buhari can never change. He’s a sectional leader,” he said.
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