…Lent $240m to World Bank in 1974; $120m to IMF in 1975
In the mid-1970s, Nigeria occupied a position few developing countries could boast of. Flush with oil revenues and rising foreign reserves, the country was not seeking financial assistance from international institutions; it was helping to finance them.
In 1974, Nigeria invested $240 million in World Bank bonds, effectively providing resources that the institution could deploy for development projects across the world. A year later, it contributed $120 million to the International Monetary Fund’s Oil Facility, a programme established to help countries struggling with soaring oil prices. At the time, Nigeria was emerging as a regional power, funding peacekeeping missions, supporting liberation movements in Africa and providing assistance to neighbouring countries.
The country was so wealthy that General Yakubu Gowon was famously quoted as saying that Nigeria’s problem was not money, but how to spend it.
Five decades later,
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