Ably emboldened by some voodoo economic experts, former military President, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, in 1985, dragged Nigeria into the uncertain, suicidal loans of the International Monetary Fund, deceptively referred to as a life-saving economic path. It was at a time when Nigeria did not really need any loans to fund its projects. The nation was not in a sick bed then, economically.
A bemused nation was told how a litre of crude oil was cheaper than a bottle of Coca-Cola to justify the need for the IMF prescriptions and its poisonous pills. Then, the serial devaluation of Nigeria’s once very strong currency began in earnest through IBB’s Structural Adjustment Programme, which only restructured the nation on a path of economic misfortune and never-ending debt. The systematic devaluation of the naira hasn’t stopped by the way.
Nigeria is definitely not going through a rosy economic situation at the moment, but it is difficult to deny that some reforms, visibly painful as they are, are yielding results. I could still recollect when one needed to call a bank’s boss to assist in getting a dollar across the border to a foreign land legitimately. The story has changed. Not comfortable with the ongoing spiralling cost of fuel, one can’t deny that the traumatised Nigerian motorists and the army of generator-dependent citizens do not need to fast and pray to avert a fuel crisis at every approaching festivity.
Forced by the dangers of looming widespread hunger, Nigerians have suddenly realised that agriculture holds such massive opportunities for the nation’s teeming population. The government has suddenly woken up to the reality that exporting products in their raw form is tantamount to working for European manufacturers and processors for a pittance. It reminds me of a story of an Ivorian cocoa farmer who was asked to identify a bar of chocolate. The poor farmer was clueless despite the fact that his country is the highest cocoa producer in the world, accounting for 2.3 million tonnes annually, about 60 per cent of the global production. That used to be the scenario in Nigeria at a time in the past.
Our little staggering forward steps are under threat of being grounded again by the same forces of evil if the leadership of this country does not identify who the real few friends of Nigeria are; I can assure you, they are not many. Most countries that pretend to be friends have their own hidden agenda, like the recent $768m fraudulent assistance by the United Kingdom to modernise the Lagos ports, which is essentially a self-serving deal to keep the dying UK steel sector afloat and keep the workers in business.
At the spring meeting of the IMF/World Bank in Washington recently, the Fund disclosed the availability of a $50bn fund to help nations struggling to keep their economies in shape.
I was delighted to hear that Nigeria categorically declined the offer, asking the Fund to go ahead and assist the more vulnerable nations. This decision did not come as a surprise, as a previous IMF loan was the first that the President Bola Tinubu government liquidated in 2025, among other external loans the nation has taken over the years, some of which could not be accounted for, while budget funding has continued to decline.
A spectacular case is the $3.3bn crude-for-loan obtained by the immediate past Group Managing Director of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation Limited, Mele Kyari, in August 2023, from the African Export-Import Bank. The dubious deal, he claimed, was to resurrect the nation’s dead refineries and to boost crude production. The timing of this controversial loan made it even more scandalous. It was at a time when the Dangote Refinery was nearing completion. Was this ‘laudable Kyari project’ meant to complement or contend with the emerging refinery or a mere cash-out plot?
As it is today, the refineries in Port Harcourt and Warri are still as dead as death itself, even after their deceit-loaded inauguration, while the nation continues to pump crude into the coffers of Afreximbank to service a loan that ended in private pockets. The strange silence of the Tinubu government on this bizarre fraud makes me wonder if the government is sincere about its anti-corruption fight or simply paying lip service to tackling a deadly national malaise.
The current GMD of NNPCL, Bayo Ojulari, told a bewildered nation that the money spent on the rehabilitation of the refineries by his predecessor was a deliberate waste of resources. Wa o! Can someone tell me that the rogues behind this mindless theft are already behind bars, please?
I have never pretended to be an economist, though my wife and I haven’t done badly in managing our domestic affairs in a turbulent economy like Nigeria. Anyone who has been able to survive in the current economic storm in the country must be an expert. I have asked those who should know how many struggling economies the IMF has successfully revived by applying its traditional chokehold. The researchers are still trying to look for one. IMF loans are mere death traps, which have been used for ages to manipulate developing countries, especially African countries, and strangulate their growth.
After taking the IMF bitter pills in 1985, Nigeria embarked on a 40-year mindless devaluation of its currency. It’s still ongoing. Having sensed the current potential for growth in the country, the hawks are back with their big bag of tricks. It is not the loans that are bad, by the way; the death sentence is usually the crippling conditions that always accompany the loans.
No country has displaced the US as the biggest debtor in the world with a debt portfolio of $32.9 trillion. China is the distant second with $15tn, while Japan comes third with $10.9tn. What does this tell you? These three well-developed countries utilise loans for the development of their countries, not to build personal empires like we like to do here. So, borrowing isn’t a bad option if a country is well-focused and intentional about its growth.
There is nothing out of place in borrowing to fund viable projects. This is an acceptable standard practice globally. The only problem in this part of the world is that loans are hardly utilised for the projects they are taken to execute. Most Nigerians resist the payment of tax on the premise that the revenues generated are hardly utilised to provide verifiable infrastructure.
As if the IMF unsolicited offer isn’t enough, the World Bank, in a follow-up, told Nigeria to rescind its decision to stop fuel importation “to restore competition and ease inflationary pressures in the country”. In its April 2026 Nigeria Development Update, the World Bank advises that reinstating fuel importation would help curb high domestic fuel prices. It submits that reopening fuel importation would reduce market distortions created by the reliance on a single refinery — Dangote Refinery.
The global bank isn’t really sympathetic to the plight of Nigerians as it claimed, but the ‘instability’ Dangote Refinery is creating in Europe and other parts of the world through its successful and aggressive operations. The WB fails to tell Nigerians that before the start of the war in the Middle East, European refineries had come under serious economic pressure as a result of the Nigerian-based refinery. A few have actually shut down. Their migraine has, however, been complicated by the war and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which allows the passage of sizable crude exports from the Middle East to Europe.
In their hour of dire need, Europe turned to Nigeria and Dangote Refinery in particular to bail them out. This is a clear reversal of what used to be the established protocol – shipment of crude from Nigeria to Europe and Nigeria importing refined fuel from Europe at a premium. Dangote aviation fuel has continued to flood the United States, Europe and Asia since the beginning of the year. Absolutely audacious!
This ‘imbalance’ is seen by the bank as a misnomer and unacceptable. There must be poisonous expert advice to undermine Nigeria’s giant leap in the fuel sector so that European refineries can keep running and maintain their workforce. Thank goodness, Dangote Refinery is not owned or operated by the government, so no internal collaborators would willingly fall into the hands of foreign manipulators for a mere home in New York.
I have no doubt about the sincerity of Tinubu to steer the jittery ship of the nation to safety, at least to the best of his ability. Granting Dangote Refinery the approval to pay for its crude purchase in Naira is a clear masterstroke. Nigerians would probably be buying Premium Motor Spirit (petrol) at over N3,000/litre at the moment if not for that single touch.
The Federal Government must strategically address or renegotiate its Irrevocable Standing Payment Order, which it entered into with its creditors, so that Dangote Refinery and other refineries that are set to come on stream soon can source their crude needs locally. The current crude production update in the country (about 1.8 million barrels/day) points to the fact that this is achievable. A situation where Nigeria uses about 900,000bpd to fulfil its ISPO obligations appears to be killing.
It is clear that the President has demonstrated uncommon courage in initiating key reforms that are yielding fruit gradually. He must, however, be wary of unsolicited, ill-conceived expert prescriptions that would regularly be dished out by these global financial policemen. They don’t mean well. The tables are turning; we must not extend a hand of fellowship to those plotting to undermine our upward movement.
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