10th February, 2024
By Deji Abdulwahab
A group of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) has called on Nigerians to seek answers from the Federal Government on how the sum of $3.4 billion in Special Drawing Rights (SDR) allocated to the country in 2021 by the International Monetary Fund was utilised.
The SDR is a form of financing instrument that a country gets from the IMF as a member country in times of global financial crisis like COVID-19.
Nigeria received $3.4 billion SDR from the IMF in August 2021
But speaking in Abuja on Friday at the launching of a Report on the Utilisation of Special Drawing Rights (SDR) in Abuja, Acting Executive Director, Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ), Leo Atakpu said two countries, Chad and Zimbabwe spent their SDR to boost agriculture.
But Nigerians must ask the Federal Government how SDR allocated to Nigeria was spent and what was it used for.
According to him, ANEEJ has organised a three-day Capacity Building Workshop, in partnership with AFRODAD and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to track SDR funds and raise citizens’ voices to end debt crises in West Africa.
At a panel discussion, Prince Chris Azor, President of, the International Peace and Civic Responsibility Centre (IPCRC), urged Nigerians to request the government to account for the IMF’s SDR as they have the right to know according to the Nigerian Constitution.
According to him, it behoves citizens to demand accountability and transparency of this SDR funds.
Also speaking, the Executive Director, of Keen and Care Initiative (KCI), Josephine Alabi, underscored the need for Nigerians to ask questions on how SDR was spent and how was it used.
Also, Dr Ambrose Igboke, Chairman, of the Guild of Public Affairs Analysts, said the nation’s leaders do what they do because nobody interrogates what they are doing.
“In developed countries, their citizens hold their leaders accountable by asking the right questions while in the developing world, leaders do what they like,” he said.
The Programme Officer, Gender and Development Action, Inyingi Irimagha, said despite the SDR funds allocated to Nigeria, SDR did not strengthen the oil sector.
Nigeria received its first SDR in the 70s when there was an oil glut, recording its second SDR in 1979 during the Gulf War, economic meltdown in 2009 and in 2021 due to COVID-19.
(NAN)