HERO OF THE PARIS CLUB REFUNDS

Nosike Ogbuenyi pays tribute to Ned Nwoko, lawyer and former member, House of Representatives

For several months, the Paris Club refund has constituted a lifeline of immense benefits to the three tiers of government in Nigeria providing needed relief to meet key obligations particularly payment of workers’ salaries, provision of welfare benefits and critical social infrastructure. The refund came at a time when the nation was recovering from the tides of recession and facing severe economic downturn which actually set in since 2013. It thus helped governments particularly at the state and grassroots levels to regain their fiscal balance.

The huge amount of the Paris club fund which came in tranches runs into billions of dollars. The refund remains a big saving grace particularly for the states and the local governments.

For clarity, the Paris Club is a group of officials from about 20 major creditor countries whose role is to find coordinated and sustainable solutions to the payment difficulties experienced by debtor countries. The club provides debt treatments to debtor countries in the form of rescheduling or servicing.

Usually, most of the debtor countries are developing third world countries which often encounter great difficulties to break out of the debt cycle. In the case of Nigeria, the country came under the terrain of Paris club as a result of the debts which different tiers of government, notably states and federal, contracted from creditor countries for decades. Nigeria struggled hard to pay off her debts as computed and restructured by the club. The country managed to wriggle out of the debt trap by paying and thus meeting her financial obligations to the creditor nations and institutions.

However, it was not known that in the process of servicing and repaying the loans, Nigeria had been inadvertently or advertently cheated by those superintending the affairs of the international debt handling club.

It took the eagle eye of a rare patriot to detect that the country had been shortchanged via over deductions running into billions of dollars by the Club. That Nigerian hero and patriot is Prince Ned Nwoko, an international lawyer of repute and a former member of the House of Representatives. Ned Nwoko courageously took up the challenge of pursuing the creditor-countries to refund the excess deductions creamed off Nigeria via repayment of the loans and other allied matters.

For several years, Ned Nwoko at great personal risk relentlessly pursued the powerful creditor club. He fought from diverse fronts filing legal suits in London, Paris, New York, Switzerland, Abuja and other places. At the end he triumphed over them and the dividend is the Paris Club refund the nation is reaping today. To Ned Nwoko who is now a senatorial contender, his heroics in successfully chasing the Paris Club for years and securing the life-saving refund is a call to national duty and a mixed bag in terms of what Nigerians know of it and how the three tiers of government have come to benefit from it at a critical period. He certainly feels a sense of accomplishment of what he has been able to do for his beloved country. To him, to carry out a patriotic duty and accomplish the task comes with a unique feeling of accomplishment and nationalism.

Ned Nwoko’s success at the international stage through securing the refund for his fatherland is a major compliment to the tenacity of President Muhammadu Buhari to entrench probity, transparency and accountability in both public and private sectors of the economy. Lack of transparency is said to be one of the areas of criticism of the Paris Club’s activities and the oversight discoveries by Ned Nwoko and his team will no doubt nudge the influential club to purge itself of such shady traits. As the administration is striving hard to entrench transparency in all transactions, utmost care should be taken in handling the issue of servicing of and repayment of foreign and local debts to prevent Nigeria from being ripped off again.

Finally, Ned Nwoko evidently deserves honours for his rare patriotic feat and these can still come in future. While commending Ned Nwoko for his heroic efforts, the President of Association of Local Governments in Nigeria (ALGON), Hon. Gambo Tanko Kagara said the masses and workers were the greatest beneficiary of the refund. He said the services of patriots like Ned Nwoko were highly needed at the national stage particularly the Senate. Already, ALGON has blazed the trail by honouring Nwoko with its prestigious award but Kagara further called on the people of Delta State to send him to the Senate to bring his patriotic efforts to bear on the National Assembly.