The World Bank has provided Nigeria access to a loan of $575 million for reconstruction of the North East and also to combat outbreak of polio in the region devastated by the Boko Haram insurgency.
Out of the total package, $125 million is for the polio emergency, while $450 million is to assist Nigeria in the reconstruction and rehabilitation efforts in the North East.
President Muhammadu Buhari disclosed the loan package in his separate letters, dated October 20, to the two arms of the National Assembly.
The information on the World Bank loan package to tackle the North East problems was enclosed as an addition in Mr. Buhari’s letter, obtained by PREMIUM TIMES, seeking the National Assembly’s approval for the Federal Government’s 2016-External Borrowing Plan.
The Borrowing Plan is $29.960 billion; but this amount does not include the $575 million World Bank loan.
While the approval for the borrowing plan can take time, Mr. Buhari sought immediate approval for the World Bank loan in view of its purpose of tackling emergency.
“The recent outbreak of polio in the North East is a matter of concern … this therefore calls for urgent and immediate action to stem the tide of the outbreak,” Mr. Buhari said.
“The World Bank has provided a loan in the sum of $125million to the FGN to procure vaccines and other ancillary facilities urgently required to effectively embark on the campaign to stop and eventually eliminate outbreak,” added the president
In August, Nigeria confirmed two new cases of polio in Borno State, meaning a setback for a country looking forward to receiving certification of polio eradication June 2017.
Before the re-emergence, Nigeria had not reported polio case since July 24, 2014. To be issued certification of eradication, a country requires three years without a case.
As recently as 2012, Nigeria, the World Health Organisation said, accounted for more than half of all polio cases worldwide.
But on September 25, 2015 Nigeria was officially delisted as one of the polio endemic countries by WHO, bringing hope of being certified polio free to a brighter perspective before it was dashed with this year’s August re-emergence in Borno, worst hit by Boko Haram.
But, apart from polio, Nigeria’s North East – especially Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states – is a case of humanitarian emergency and infrastructural as well as socio-economic collapse, largely due to Boko Haram terrorism.
There are millions of internally displaced persons some of whom now face challenges resettling in their communities recaptured from Boko Haram by the military. Thousands of f schools, clinics and houses were destroyed by the terror group.
According to UNICEF, 4.5 million people are in dire need of assistance out of which one million are in danger of extreme malnutrition.
But with the relative peace and stability in the North East following military gains, Mr. Buhari wrote to the National Assembly, “it is extremely urgent to start reconstruction and rehabilitation of the region in order to create jobs for the people and rehabilitate schools to get children off the streets and into the schools.”
The President, then, said the World Bank had provided $450 million for these reconstruction and rehabilitation efforts.
Giving breakdown of how the $450 million would be utilized, the president said community and social development project would take $75 million; Nigeria states health investment project would take $125 million; while state education programme investment project would take $100 million.
Two other projects – Nigeria Youth Employment and Social Support Project and FADAMA 111 will take $100 million and $50 million respectively.
“Given the emergency nature of these facilities and the need to consolidate the peace and return the region to normalcy and considering time it will take to get the National Assembly’s approvals, it has become inevitable to request for the NASS leadership approval pending the consideration and approval of the 2016-2018 borrowing plan to enable us disburse these funds immediately.”
Although the titles of all the projects suggest national purpose, the president clearly mentioned them as “projects earmarked for the North East”.
The Senate currently has an ad-hoc committee led by Shehu Sani (APC-Kaduna) probing utilisation of funds so far released to the Presidential Initiative for the North East which the legislative body accused of not showing “tangible result”
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