Why Buhari’s loan package is a hard-sell

 It is no more news that the Senate had disapproved of the request by President Muhamadu Buhari for a loan of $29.6 billion (about N10 trillion) depending on the exchange rate adopted for the conversion to naira. And the reason was simply because the Presidency sent in the proposal with more questions than answers. The […]

 It is no more news that the Senate had disapproved of the request by President Muhamadu Buhari for a loan of $29.6 billion (about N10 trillion) depending on the exchange rate adopted for the conversion to naira. And the reason was simply because the Presidency sent in the proposal with more questions than answers. The Senate had rejected the request on the grounds that it came without the necessary details required for adequate appraisal and due legislative action; a situation that rendered the proposal a hard sell. Incidentally even the Presidency has acknowledged the shoddiness of the loan packaging and has promised to present the missing details. 

There is even an unconfirmed insinuation that the details were deliberately concealed from the Senators in order to vitiate their effective scrutiny of the loan proposal. If that be the case it is most unfortunate as even during the military era in 1986, when the General Ibrahim Babangida administration was to obtain a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the government launched a national debate on its propriety. It therefore remains anachronistic that a democratically elected civilian administration will find it difficult to allow public scrutiny of its intention to obtain a loan. 

However, acting in apparent sympathy for the executive arm the Senate Majority Leader Ali Ndume offered to represent the loan proposal before the Senate as a gesture of accommodating the weaknesses of the executive initiative with respect to the loan package. Speaking to reporters shortly after Senate plenary on Tuesday, Ndume assured that the Senate will revisit the issue whenever the executive puts its house in order. In the context of the fore going therefore, the fiscal agenda of the government is now hanging on the outcome of a wait in limbo.

It is significant that the Senate action is not in isolation from the public take on the issue. From the thrust of reactions in the public domain, it is clear that beyond the legislators, most Nigerians look at the loan initiative and any other attempt at fresh borrowing by any government in the country today, with concern. 

This concern draws from the lessons of history which teach that dalliance between governments in Nigeria and loans – local or foreign, has never ended on a palatable note. The question many are asking is how does the country pay this new loan back, especially when its redemption shall likely extend beyond the tenure of the present administration.

The administration has gone to great length to convince Nigerians on the propriety of a bail-out loan for the country at this time. The fact that it is even incorporated into the budgets of successive years points to the premium placed on it by the government. Meanwhile, based on the sterling public image of the President and the change agenda of the administration, there is a general assumption that the loan proposal is driven by a patriotic zeal to make the country better. 

Yet unattended is the question of the absorptive capacity of the country with respect to the loan package which will determine its ultimate utility for Nigeria. For until the country is disposed to optimally utilise the opportunities offered by a bailout loan facility so long will any such endowment be frittered away on frivolities. And unfortunately, that is the state in which many Nigerians and foreigners alike see this country wallowing in as its comfort zone. 

The lessons from the disapproval by the Senate of the loan request dictate that the government has to undertake a complete makeover of its administrative machinery to predispose its policy initiatives and general operations towards closer congruence with the legitimate expectations of the Nigerian people. And this can only be realised when the proposals and initiatives of the executive arm (like this loan package) tally with the prescriptions of the legislature, being the true representatives of the people. So far that is not the case.

From experience, it is likely that the National Assembly will be subjected to intense pressure by the executive through sundry channels, to concede to the loan request in spite of whatever reservations the body may muster. Yet since the devil in any suspect document is in the details, the legislators will do well to appraise whatever clarifications the executive may offer from all possible angles, including the following.

Firstly, is the issue of the now questionable competencies of the President’s economic management team, which has been exposed by the tardiness in handling a bail-out loan package as sensitive as the present one. The country’s history is replete with instances where the compromised management of national issues has created permanent damage to the national weal. Typical examples are the loss of the Bakassi Peninsular, the Niger Delta imbroglio and the cancerous Boko Haram insurgency in the country’s vital North East. In line with the African proverb that “if the first child does not crawl how will the second one run”, it is doubtful- going by street level wisdom, that a team which cannot manage with success the preliminary advocacy for a loan package can effectively supervise its implementation.

In any case, it is easily recalled that for some time there have been persistent calls for the President Buhari to review his team especially with respect to building synergy with the National Assembly. If he has been looking for an opportunity to act, this is it.

Another area of concern is the nation’s public service which remains the plank on which public service delivery is marshalled. It is no secret that without fundamental changes in orientation and structure at the three tiers of governance, the public service is hardly in a shape to drive the implementation of a bail-out loan package that will deliver the expected results on schedule. Even the President recently ordered the commencement of reform programmes in the public service domain, and charged the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (HOSCF) Mrs Oyo Ita in that regard. It is of interest to Nigerians in general how far the reform programme has progressed since such a dispensation will determine if the envisaged loan shall save or enslave Nigerians in the future. 

Yet another area of concern is the factor of governors whose states are participating in this forthcoming bazaar as the loan package is largely seen as. What guarantee is there that the same actors who made mincemeat of the recent federal government bail-out package will play according to the script with the benefits of the foreign loan. 

Then is the often-concealed ethnocentric element in foreign loans with which lenders shackle borrowers to permanent subservience and neo-colonial control. Foreign loans, no matter how seemingly benevolent they are offered – as it were on a platter of gold, hardly come without a price. In reality they usually come with all forms of padding as will promote the core interests of the lender. For instance loans from China cannot come without the dumping of Chinese labourers on Nigeria, who will starve Nigerians of access to available jobs.

It is therefore in the context of the foregoing considerations that the National Assembly should look at the loan proposal and drive its utility for the country. It is also in this respect that all stakeholders in the country – labour, corporate Nigeria, the academia and corporate Nigeria should rally around the legislature in this enterprise of inventing a welcome future for Nigeria.