Former Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Attahiru Jega, has advised President Bola Tinubu’s government not to take every advice given by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Jega stated that while it is beneficial to engage with the institutions, the government must be careful not to throw the country into a long-term problem.

The former INEC boss gave this advice while speaking at the ongoing 2024 Annual Directors’ Conference with the theme, ‘Good Governance as a Catalyst for Economic Recovery, Growth, and Development,’ organized by the Chartered Institute of Directors of Nigeria, CIoD.

He also called for a change in the leadership recruitment process, saying the main issue facing Nigeria is that most of the leaders are not prepared for leadership.

The Bretton Woods institutions have been accused of advising President Bola Tinubu on present economic policies, especially the removal of subsidy from PMS as well as the floating of the naira, which have plunged the country into inflationary pressures.

The hardship in the country has been blamed on the ‘anti-people’ policies suggested by the World Bank and IMF.

But the IMF’s African Region Director, Abebe Selassie, had, at a briefing on the sidelines of the IMF and World Bank Annual Meetings in Washington DC, US, claimed that the organization did not advise Tinubu to remove fuel subsidy.

“The decision was a domestic one. It was President Tinubu’s decision. We don’t have programs in Nigeria. Our role is limited to regular dialogue, as we have with other nations like Japan or the UK,” he said.

Jega urged Nigerians to pay attention to nurturing and entrenching democratic governance, rather than merely good governance, as being promoted by the World Bank.

“This is the only way to place Nigeria on a sustainable trajectory of what I call ‘People-oriented development processes.’

Jega reaffirmed that while it is good to engage the World Bank and other organizations, “we should not swallow hook, line, and sinker what they bring to us”.

“We must be very careful in terms of what measures they have suggested to us because if we don’t do that we may advertently or inadvertently fall into greater medium and longer-term problems even if we think we are seeing short-term benefits from that kind of engagement,” he stressed.

Read Also: New Minimum Wage: Federal Govt. Begins Payment to Civil Servants