Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala: Rejected Abroad,
Resented At Home
27 May 2012
By Abdulhamid Babatunde
slimjenkinsmedia@yahoo.com
I preferred to wait patiently for the outcome of the
now gone but not forgotten Breton Woods 2012 head hunt
where our Ngozi Okonjo Iweala assumed the role of
Nigeria's hot shot. For old school observers of the
camouflaged "international development institutions"
like me it was certain that she would never make it.
Just as the discerning few African Americans know too
well, it's a white man's world we are living in and
living with, never mind all the hyped hoopla about an
international community. The Obama phenomenon is now
but a flash in the pan of racial equality which the US
powers that be almost hoodwinked the world with by
enabling the emergence of the unlikeliest American
President ever. The unchanging reality of the white
man's world is that the blacks will remain Man (and
Woman) Fridays, if only for the proverbial struggle to
continue till the end of time.
From the way Madam Fixit of the Nigerian economy fame
made a show of actually contesting for the World Bank
top job, it was so easy to see her in the true colours
of an imperialist maiden, equally adept in political
solicitation as she is in economic sadism. It was
enough to hear her crooning about the need for a
"nimbler" World Bank, a rather rash remark for someone
who was literally dyed-in-the-wool of the World Bank's
inhumanly austere maladjustments of economies. That
was an outrageous outburst indeed and it could only
have signaled an impending parting of ways between
master and maiden but certainly not the words of a
prospective Woman Friday on the eve of promotion. The
prompt approvals of Ngozi Iweala's infamous home-going
leaves of absence by the caucus of the World Bank were
definitely not indicative of her strategic relevance
in the corridors of economic imperialism. Even her
"impressive career" in the World Bank was after all a
mere token of "equal opportunity", not to be mistaken
for acculturation, please!
So internationally and specifically within the covert
chambers of the World Bank, it was a no-contest
confirmed by "tradition" of selective favoritism
enthroned by almighty America as overlord of the white
man's world. And America is more comfortable with
diminutive "carry-go" Asians for such top jobs as in
Ban ki Moon (UN) and now Jim Yong Kim (WB), than with
a bland African woman sporting a precariously balanced
head gear. All of this was known before Breton Woods
2012, so the wonder is that she was ever described as
a leading contender. In fact, contrary to what many
home-based spinners trumpeted, Ngozi Okonjo Iweala
could not have gained any mileage for her wild-goose
chase from her supposedly successful career as Madam
Fixit of the Nigerian economy for the obvious reason
of progressive collapse of the very economy she was
specially invited to salvage.
There should be no contention about Ngozi Okonjo
Iweala's unflinching loyalty to the dictates of the
World Bank's aforementioned sadistic treatment of
ailing economies of the developing world. She has
totally obliterated the appalling records left by her
kinsmen-predecessors –Chu Okongwu and Kalu Idika Kalu-in
implementing the deadly prescriptions of the World
Bank/IMF voodoo-nomics, particularly in ensuring that
the treatment is deadlier than the ailment. Even
though SAP was a kiss of death our economy may yet
resurrect from, Madam Fixit's post-traumatic therapy
unleashed first in the guise of a debt-destroying diet
and now as a subsidy-subduing syrup, have proved
terminally effective indeed. So much so that even
die-hard Kalu Idika Kalu himself was in the forefront
of "Occupy Nigeria" denunciators of Ngozimycin.
One only need to recall that President Goodluck
Jonathan specially hauled in Mrs Iweala to fix the
Nigerian economy with her famed but misleading
combination of international expertise and local savvy
in managing economies. If we recall further however we
find that President Obasanjo, from whom GEJ was taking
a cue, eventually side-kicked her to the foreign
affairs ministry to ease her return to sender, seeing
how much damage she had managed into the economy with
calamitous political consequences even for
dictator-turned-despot. Now on her second coming,
Madam Fixit studiously presides over the
transformation of the besieged economy into a
debt-ridden, subsidy-guzzling, punisher of pensioners.
All this without even adjusting her tottering
head-tie!
In the particular case of the subsidy-scam, Ngozi
Okonjo Iweala's "expertise" was more concerned with
taxing impoverished citizens by jerking petrol pump
price to shore up a serially-looted and "near broke"
government treasury than in establishing the facts of
the matter as have now been astonishingly uncovered by
Farouk Lawan's House probe. It is unbelievable that a
world-renown economist, brandishing credentials and
careers in economic management can be so callously
careless about evident corruption and economic
sabotage on a such a scale as to question, nay debunk,
her claim to scholarship, professionalism and moral
rectitude. That's how she also glossed over the KPMG
report submitted to her which documented the pension
scam until the House of Representatives opened the can
of worms.
Yet she has no qualms prancing about the national
stage as an outstanding technocrat worthy of honour
and applause. On second thoughts, the only people who
will applaud her appalling performance are those who
have always placed priority in destabilizing promising
developing countries with their notorious economic
reforms which deform and derail them while debasing
and denying the citizenry of the abundant endowments
of their fatherland. It's a pity that Woman Friday's
worst performance against her people could not earn
her the top job in the engine-room of economic
imperialism.
ABDULHAMID BABATUNDE is a former editor of THE
DEMOCRAT newspaper in Kaduna
©
EsinIslam.Com
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