Development Fund (ADF), the concessional arm of the ADB or even The Nigerian Trust Fund (NTF) in ADB, a soft window for very poor African countries? Perhaps what we do not know is that other African countries that attract more official development assistance (ODA), foreign direct investments (FDIs) envy Nigeria and are only interested in a parasitic relationship and not in a symbiotic one.

And many of them are better than us in infrastructural development and even in soccer. Imagine land- locked and crisis torn Rwanda apart from its hydro electricity potentials is exploring the possibility of using alternative energy sources like solar, bio-mass, bio-gas or geothermal, etc, whereas oil rich Nigeria, the only country in the world without-a- National Air Carrier, is waiting for the establishment of AFC before it can develop. Not our portion! Imagine South Africa that rode on Nigeria’s crest during its liberation struggle against apartheid and was given unfettered access to operate mobile telephony through MTN, to now turn round to harass Nigerian businesses in that country.

How cheap are AFC loans given that it has to source funds from international financial markets at a premium? Even ADB loans as we know are expensive because it has to source funds from the open market. Why must Nigeria be borrowing from its own capital? Is that legally and technically permissible? After our Okonjo Iweala had helped to clear our foreign debts, the Augean stable of a forgotten albatross, why was Nigeria through AFC tricked into a debt trap peonage or another debt overhang which might pose another reconciliation problem to Debt Management Office (DMO)?

-Is Nigeria no longer credit worthy in the books of bilateral and multilateral financial institutions that it has to start floating its own financial institution? Must AFC come to the rescue even when we can provide the funds without dabbling into the calculus of the opportunity cost of capital? Or how was the over $16billion spent (with no result) on the power sector sourced? Or how is the West African Gas Pipeline project being financed?


By Jerry Ukoh Dickson
From businessdayonline.com