NGOZI OKONJO-IWEALA IS NIGERIA'S PROBLEM

In my view Ngozie Okonjo-Iweala is the problem. She is the architect of this policy. She serves the interests of the IMF and the World Bank more than she does the interests of the Nigerian people. That has always been the case but OBJ controlled her with a firm hand when we were in power and he used her to secure a good deal for us on the foreign debt issue because she knew the system. If the World Bank asks her to jump she will ask ”how high”? This is the woman that is virtually our Prime Minister today. No wonder we are in trouble. People like this have very little feeling for the masses and they cannot empathise with their pain. Even the traditional politicians empathise more with the ordinary people because they have to interact with them on a daily basis but these so-called technocrats do not and they do not really care. All they care and think about is the full implementation of the economic prescriptions of the IMF and the World Bank and they don't care how painful and drastic the implementation of those prescriptions are.

I have tremendous respect for Ngozie as a person and frankly I happen to actually like her because she is civilised, well-bred, exceptionally intelligent, warm and affable. However we have a completely different world-view. Her world-view is that the ”Third World” should live at the behest and by the grace of the Bretton Woods monetry institutions and she believes in a fully globalised world where the second slavery (i.e. international debt) holds sway and keeps the poorer nations of the world in their proper place. My view is that nations were not created to be broken down into vassal states which are remote-controlled, punished, enslaved and impoverished by a few greedy international bankers that run the IMF and the World Bank.

I do not trust these foreign international monetry institutions and those that work for them and my vast knowledge of history shows me that wherever they go in the world they only spread misery, poverty, unreasonable conditionalities, misery and wickedness. Their yoke is heavy and they are simply tools of oppression that are firmly in the control of all-mighty America and western Europe. These are the forces and the people that are causing GEJ to derail. He should stand up to them and he should not give in to their intimidation and threats. He has nothing to fear from them because the westrn world itself is now going through it's own major financial crisis and it is crumbling. Nigeria is big enough and strong enough to face them down no matter what and chart her own course. What they are using him to do is to impoverish the Nigerian people, weaken them and bring them down to their knees. They did the same in South America through the 80's and the 90's and they are still doing it in Africa. Even the nation of Ghana, which has a far more stable and prosperous economy than Nigeria today and which has just discovered oil, was forced by this hidden hand that controls their government to remove their own oil subsidy on xmas day of all days. What a terrible xmas gift to the Ghanian people. Since then prices for virtually everything in Ghana has doubled. And we can be rest assured that after the trickle down effect sets in we should expect the same in Nigeria- everything will double or triple in price including food, transport, diesal, kerosene, petrol, commodities, the general cost of living etc. This is unecessary, unfair, wrong and exceptionally callous.

***This article was written several months back by Femi Fani-Kayode, Director of Publicity, Goodluck Jonathan Campaign Organisation.