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IBB TREATISE: A lesson in Mystery.
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Let me begin by saying “If you’re precious to God you’re as important to Satan”.
The book lunch “A Journey in Service” has exposed not only the fragility of our political set up but also longstanding dependencies, vulnerabilities, and power dynamics that demand a broader reckoning. The treatise explored the urgent need for structural change into the polity, seeking clarity and ideas amid the current economic chaos and uncertainties.
The economic policy choices made, to most Nigerians felt aren’t being guided by the needs of people affected by the crises but by what will resonate better with the Western audiences including the IMF and the World Bank.
What was remaking our economic policies, if it is not to end up as another failed reform led by the same people who rendered the system ineffective and complicit in the first place?
How can it be a political project, one that recognises that people do not fall into crises by accident, that their vulnerabilities have been forced upon them by centuries of capitalism and colonialism?
And how can it be more radical, a departure from the paternalism and corporate mentality that pervades the social sector in the name of efficiency as our Commander-In-Chief wants us to believe?
Should it also be more activist, operating with a clear understanding that crises are part of the broader structural violence needed to be afflicted on our societies, hence acting in concert with those resisting those other overlapping forms of systemic
inequality.
Despite what we’re always told, today’s govt policies do not seem primarily concerned with developing protection or offering services for people affected by crises.
Co-opting in totality the IMF and WB projections is a narrow focus of bad political act. The govt seems more inclined to produce narratives of absolution for its sponsors in exchange for funding of its expansive infrastructure and privileged position, often at the cost of the survival and dignified futures for people it serves.
The idea that US has been a benevolent supporter, but a donor at the same time, has on record been neglecting international norms, supporting conflict, destroying the environment, and prioritise economic growth above people’s lives that has now been exposed beyond repair, broken more than can be fixed by just any future govt.
The ongoing exposures by President Trump administration is neither the beginning nor the end of the lesson meant to us to heed. I am happy that President Trump administration decided to expose the inherent inequities of those policies to serve as a wake up call to Africa and world over. THE TREATISE IS MEANT TO SAY for good that “NIGERIA FIRST”.
Malam Mohammed Kabir Ilyasu a retired foreign affairs officer author and public affairs analyst writes from Kaduna Nigeria
24th February 2025
