Abuja – The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) on Wednesday cautioned the Federal Government over the plan to collect another loan package from the World Bank.
This is contained in a statement signed by the National Coordinator of HURIWA, Mr Emmanuel Onwubiko made available to newsmen in Abuja.
Onwubiko said that the proposed loan would be used in the guise of rebuilding North-Eastern Nigeria, which was devastated by armed Islamists, particularly during the war on terror.
“Why are we learning to run even before we walk? Why can’t we do first things first rather than always chase after money that may eventually be frittered away.
“I am sure even if this loan is collected for this purpose, the expenditures would be coordinated by consultants as usual.
“Those multilateral agencies who will drain a lot of the funds on servicing their consultants and not delivering the real dividends to the victims.’’
He said the war had not been successfully fought and won nor the masterminds prosecuted and punished for their monumental crimes against humanity, yet loans were needed to rebuild destroyed property.
The coordinator said that Nigeria must be careful not to dabble into such huge traps of being reclassified as a heavily indebted nation once more.
According to him, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund’s conditionality, especially for repayments were shrouded in the muddy waters of deceit with double-face duplicity, harmful to developing countries.
Onwubiko urged the Federal Government to seek for assistance from those countries that pledged support for Nigeria to help in rebuilding areas destroyed during the war on terrorists.
He said this was preferable to going for loans that it was not sure of being able to pay back soon.
“The U.S., France and UK have pledged to cooperate with the new Federal administration, those donations rather than World Bank loan would have been more desirable,’’ he said.
The Huriwa official said that though, rebuilding the livelihoods and the destroyed infrastructures of affected areas were imperative, how to go about generating resources for it must not be mired in huge controversy of international loans.
Onwubiko said that rebuilding should come after the war was won by the Nigerian government and the terrorists brought to swift and efficient justice whether locally or before the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
“It is then that the Federal Government can hire independent forensic auditors from reputable global firms.
“These will ascertain how the humongous federally shared and redistributed allocations to the three most affected North East states were spent,’’ he said. (NAN)
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