MDB Results 2026: An Independent Assessment — Day 2, Part 2 of 5
Part 2: Nigeria, $3.4 Billion, and 288 Deaths
They reached the Africa Department. The Director was the boss here. Ministers came to pay homage here regularly.
Luckily two seats were free. They sat there.
“Tell me about Nigeria,” said Kofi.
“In April 2020, this ship disbursed 3.4 billion dollars to Nigeria.”
“Why?”
“Emergency financing. COVID-19. A Rapid Financing Instrument — the fastest approval process the Fund has. One tranche. No monitored structural benchmarks. No conditions beyond the government’s own letter promising to use the money to respond to the pandemic.”
“How many people had died of COVID in Nigeria at that point?”
The genie was still for a moment.
“288. Confirmed deaths. At the time of Board approval.”
“288,” said Kofi. “In a country of 220 million people.”
“Yes. Nigeria had recorded 288 confirmed COVID deaths — placing it among the least affected large economies globally at that point. The public health justification for emergency scale was, at the moment of approval, extraordinarily thin.”
“And the 3.4 billion dollars?”
“Disbursed on a Thursday. Single shot. Into a government account. Under compressed Board review timelines. With conditionality lighter than a full programme.”
“What happened to the money?”
“The IMF’s own Independent Evaluation Office, in its 2023 review of the COVID emergency response, found that governance safeguards ‘could have been strengthened sooner.’ It found that monitoring frameworks did not adequately detect diversion risks in high-risk environments.”
“Was Nigeria a high-risk environment?”
“Nigeria’s public financial management system had been assessed four months earlier. The PEFA report was finalized on December 30, 2019. It was on record. It had clarly raised red flags about the procurement system in Nigeria. The findings documented extensive weaknesses across the entire system. Bank reconciliations months behind. Ghost workers on the payroll. Procurement irregularities. The Nigeria Open Treasury Portal recorded transfers to ghost worker accounts and procurement transactions inconsistent with emergency health expenditure during and after the disbursement period.”
“The IMF was fully aware of this. Its own experts from AFRITAC West had worked on Nigeria’s PFM systems for six years. Yet the program was approved on April 28, 2020 and disbursed on April 30, 2020.”
“And afterwards?”
“The Accountant General of the Federation — the person responsible for all government payments — was prosecuted and convicted of laundering 109 billion naira of public funds. Approximately 240 million dollars. He was not alone. Others in the system also helped themselves. The Accountant General was the one who was caught and prosecuted. The full scale of what was diverted from those funds has never been fully established. What does not exist is an IMF programme completion report. No outcome assessment. No accountability output from the institution that disbursed the money.”
Kofi said nothing for a moment.
“And the programme rating?” he asked.
“There is no programme rating. There is no programme completion report. There is no outcome assessment of any kind. The 3.4 billion dollars was disbursed on a Thursday. The record ends there.”
“Was Nigeria alone?” Kofi asked.
“No. In 2020 and 2021 this ship disbursed approximately 280 billion dollars in new financing to more than 80 countries. The COVID emergency response. Into hugely risky fiduciary environments that it was fully aware of. IN multiple countries officials helped themselves to this windfall.”
“280 billion dollars. And not one of those programmes has an outcome rating.”
“Not one. The largest emergency financing operation in the history of the multilateral system generated zero accountability output at the programme level. The IEO reviewed the COVID response — a thematic evaluation, patterns across programmes. It did not rate a single disbursement. It did not ask, for any individual country: did this money achieve what it was supposed to achieve?It did not make one mention of the Accountant General of Nigeria who had stolen over $200 million and had been arrested or the multiple other cases in other countries where audits had confirmed that the money had been stolen. Not one word.”
“The IMF also wrote a report about Africa. The Africa-wide response.”
“The COVID emergency response in Sub-Saharan Africa is the sharpest illustration of the accountability gap. The region received approximately 50 to 60 billion dollars in emergency and programme financing in 2020 and 2021. Many of these countries were already in debt distress or high risk of it. Several had governance environments the Fund’s own staff had documented as weak.”
“And the IEO found?”
“Governance commitments were too often treated as checklist exercises. Monitoring frameworks did not detect diversion in high-risk environments as early as they should have. And then — an internal survey of 1,903 IMF staff. Frontline economists. The people who go to the countries. Who negotiate the conditions. Who recommend the disbursements.”
“What did they find?”
“41 percent of those frontline economists said they did not believe the governance commitments they deployed actually prevented the diversion of public funds.”
Kofi was very still.
“41 percent. The people doing the work. Who go to the countries. Who sign off on the disbursements.”
“41 percent. The institution knows. The people doing the work know. And there is no programme rating. No completion report. No accountability output. No record.”
“This money was provided with a sovereign guarantee. Nigeria was compelled to return the entire amount with interest. It did so by April 30,2025. The lenders make the rule.”
“There is something I need to tell you about these reports,” said the genie. “The analysis of what happened in Nigeria — the 3.4 billion, the 288 deaths, the Accountant General’s conviction — has been documented and shared with the IMF for their comments. The analysis of the Africa-wide emergency response has also been shared. These are draft findings. The IMF has been given the opportunity to respond, to correct any factual errors, to provide context.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Kofi asked.
“Because this is how serious analysis works. Not accusations. Not surprises. Documentation, shared with the institution, with an invitation to engage. The Spring Meetings begin on 13th April. The Finance Ministers of the world will cross 19th Street. They deserve to do so with this information on the table — not after the carnival is over.”
“And if the IMF responds?”
“The final version will incorporate their response. Whatever they say. That is the commitment.”
Part 1: The Ship That Does Not Keep Score
Part 2: Nigeria and the Africa-Wide Emergency (this piece)
Part 3: The Cold War Across 19th Street
Part 4: The Homework the IMF Does Rate: AFRITAC and the Score That Has Not Moved
Part 5: Europe’s Chair
Full series at mdbreform.com