Madam has been deftly and craftily playing the race card. At home, her core supporters have been playing the tribe card as well. She often sounds like a leftist these days. One wonders if, after being with the World Bank for close to thirty years, she will be able to really reform it, or if the mad politics of survival being played by the Americans at present, will equally swallow her. I wish Dr Okonjo Iweala, the very best in her quest.
A quick look into what the World Bank really is. A friend who got a job there many years back was quick to tell me that no banking is done there, that the place is all about politics. I also think we should find out why Mrs Oby Ezekwesili, one of Nigeria’s brightest ladies as well, resigned unceremoniously a few months ago. The World Bank – or the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) – is one of the major fallouts of the Bretton Woods, New Hampshire meetings held between 1941 and 1945, by the major countries of the world, in which they sought to find a logical way of trading after the World War 2, ends. According to Professor Kith Pilbeam of the City University London, 46 countries were in attendance, but only the opinion of one and a half countries mattered. The half is the UK, represented by Lord Maynard Keynes, its then Minister for Finance. Essentially, the Bretton Woods meetings, and its culminations – World Bank. IMF etc – were USA’s way of seizing control of world politics and economies, from the battered British, French and Germans.
The American Empire had arrived. Britain was in ruins from the pounding by German Panzers. Germany itself was in shreds from the artillery of the Allies. The USA was unscathed. So it went for the jugular of the Brits, who owed the USA about $26billion dollars and needed another $5billion for reconstruction. “Devalue your currency, buddy!”, the Yankees thundered! “In fact, all currencies must be pegged to ours, and we will back our dollar with Gold, and set the price of Gold at $35 per Ounce”. Overnight the British Empire was dead, and major countries moved their foreign reserves to the USA from the UK.
The World Bank therefore seems to most discerning people like a US war instrument. It really is the USA’s major tool of financial warfare. I recently read an article (a Harvard-adopted case study) titled “Letter from Bolivia – Leasing the Rain”, see http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2002/04/08/020408fa_FACT1, wherein it was documented by the NewYorker magazine, how the World Bank facilitated the indebtedness of developing countries, and the subsequent buying on the cheap of their national treasures by US-owned conglomerates. A particularly touching example was when ALL the water sources of Bolivia was privatized in 1999, such that even wells dug long before by villagers, were commandeered by these conglomerates, and metres were installed upon such wells, so that all villagers will now pay to some yankee company, water rates for the wells they dug themselves!
The war-orientation of the World Bank is even more poignantly underlined by the fact that the first substantive President of that ‘bank’, Mr John McCloy, was the then immediate Assistant US Secretary (Minister) for WAR! Since its creation, two more Secretaries for Defence have been appointed to be World Bank President, namely Robert McNamara and Paul Wolfowitz. Many other former World Bank Presidents have worked in one form of intelligence position or the other, for the USA. Mrs Iweala knows this very well, and except she has also consistently worked for US intelligence, she is unlikely to get the job.
Therefore, in supporting Madam Ngozi for the World Bank presidency, we should be very clear as to what we are supporting, and we should interrogate her to be sure she is not carrying out some American agenda, or to be sure she has a strategy to actually assist developing countries in her position, no matter how marginally. We live in a world of total control. The USA can ill-afford to slack around in its strategy at this point in time, so it is unlikely that they will just want to be nice to Africa by ceding the World Bank Presidency.
Then there is another fantastic female Minister in the Jonathan cabinet – Dr Stella Oduah-Ogienmwonyi, a firebrand, ‘ass-kicking’, kind of lady. She has won a few battles for Nigeria in recent times – including the reinstating of Arik Air’s Abuja-London route, and the ongoing battle about the exorbitant rates charged Nigerians on that same route, by British Airways and Virgin. The last time I went to London, I flew Arik, and was shocked that only 15 of us were in the flight (both ways) that could accommodate 250 people. For a fare of N100,000 more (in economy class), Nigerians were falling over themselves to fly with BA! The services on Arik were amazing, and their all-Nigerian cabin crew, made me proud.
Princess Stella Oduah’s yeoman-ship is evident in the current revamping of all major airports in Nigeria. Some of my Ogas have asked me to stop talking about her, but I cannot. What is good is good. It is as if we’ve never had a Minister of Aviation in Nigeria. Finally, the shame that we call International Airports are getting a proper overhauling! Thanks Madam, we are proud of you. I recall that we had a professor at the helms at Aviation when airplanes were falling off Nigeria’s skies like paper kites!
But imagine, dear readers, if the top job at ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organisation) opens up, and Princess Stella decides to go for it, abandoning the great work she is doing? Will we support her just because she is our ‘sister’? Or will we ask her to please stay, so that our international airports will not become abandoned projects’? That is exactly how I feel about Madam Okonjo’s quest. If she truly loves Nigeria, she should stay and salvage this place! If she goes, she will be reminded all too soon, that the place is called World Bank, not Nigerian Bank. And Nigeria would be the worse for it. National duty calls, and should supercede personal ego and ambition. Or tribe and race…
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