In October, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) asked the High Court in Lagos to declare as illegal, pressures by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on President Olusegun Obasanjo to implement their economic policies on Nigerians. ASUU is urging the court to declare that:
- World Bank and IMF are not competent to compel the Federal Government of Nigeria to implement their economic policies;
- the interference of the two institutions in the Nigerian economy is illegal and unconstitutional;
- the Nigerian government does not have a mandate to handover the economy to the control of the Bank and IMF; and
- the wholesale planned privatization of the Nigerian Telecommunication Plc and other telecoms companies is illegal and unconstitutional.
No date has been set for the hearing.
“I accept that we wrote the programmes, gave the loans and implemented the programmes. I am not saying that you are wrong [that IMF programmes have not worked and have harmed the poor] but that we are doing something about it. That is why we now have the HIPC Initiative.”
G. E.Gondwe, Director, Africa Department, IMF
