Olusegun Aganga, Goldman Sachs outfit, and the Nigerian economy (I)a By Iroabuchi Onwuka

Aganga Olusegun is the new Finance minister and Chairman of the Board of World Bank? I can’t explain it. He has the best wishes of the country but there is need to be ‘cautiously optimistic’ with this new man on the block.



The appointment of Olusegun Aganga as Finance minister and Chairman of the Board of World Bank and IMF was hailed by Nigerians as a step forward in the attempt to redress Nigerian Financial image. Olusegun Aganga with all due respect to his fans seem to be relatively unknown. The man is a largely unknown quantity so to speak, a fact that is complicated by his recent honorary as Chairman of the Board of World Bank and IMF. It is not to be said that the new title is expected to enlarge his International weight, for it seems that he was a very light quantity. The much of what we know of the man is that he helped to negotiate a 4 billion dollar rescue package for certain Nigerian Banks sometime last year, details of which were not very clear. It is now speculative that Goldman Sachs was probably the Jack in the box and given the new details of Goldman Sachs and it chicanery on CDO, we should have course for concern. If however such isolated incident is enough to penetrate the ranks of the Nigerian financial institution, Aganga is perhaps more than welcome to work for the country in terms like this and we wish him the best.



The intention of those who awarded Olusegun Aganga the Robe at the World bank is very clear that Nigeria as a country is to be given a larger role in Africa and perhaps the world. Nigerian economy is currently straddled in its cusp between the dark embrace of 2008 ‘epic of financial’ whose victims included Soludo and the hope of its financial survival under the aegis of Sanusi. In many ways and for what it’s worth, the country needs to welcome the man and his Alma mater, and for the sake of this trust, Nigeria need to be cautiously optimistic given the additional importance attached to the man and about the robe that was vested on him. From the nature of the unprecedented promotion, it will seem to suggest that Aganga Olusegun’s appointment is ‘Custodian’ in the ‘Hedge Fund’ traditional sense of word, for we know that the post is nothing else than an ‘empty suit’ of recognition, a recognition which explains the ranks of Investment Banks who engineered his decoration at World Bank. This appointment alone should have sent out the right signal to Nigerians and to Nigerian media, that something is wrong with the set up, that some is wrong with a Finance Minister caught between two opposing interest, his loyalty to Goldman Sachs and his interest in serving his country. Whereas, Americans would tilt to challenge the other titles, our talk active Nigeria seem to acquiesce. But this is not the first time.