Nigeria has been excluded from the 4 Billion Dollar Covid-19 grant issued to over fifty countries in Africa and other developing nations around the globe by the World Bank.
Whether it’s intentional or otherwise, the reasons for exempting the giant of Africa is unconfirmed, as the funds were expended on vaccines and addressing the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.
The message tagged “World Bank financing for Covid-19 Vaccine Rollout Exceeds $4bn for 50 Countries” was on a document hosted yesterday on the Bank’s platform.
The document cited the Bank’s Managing Director, Operations, Axelvan Trotsenburg, stating the Bank provided over $4bn mainly for acquiring and deploying COVID-19 vaccines for 51 developing countries, half of which are in Africa.
“More than half of the financing comes from the International Development Association, the Bank’s fund for the world’s poorest countries, and is on grant or highly concessional terms.” The statement read in bits.
Experts would interpret Nigeria’s exclusion from the beneficiaries as though the nation is no longer among the world’s poorest countries since that was the essence of the funds in the first place.
Throwing more light on the development, World Bank reiterated that the Four Billion Dollar covid-19 finance is part of its commitment to giving low and middle-income nations assistance in acquiring vaccines and solidifying their health systems.
There’s, however, a conflict in understanding this gesture by the bank, knowing that records show Nigeria in recent times was once described as the poverty capital of the world.
Meanwhile, the only compensation thus far is that the global poverty clock shows Nigeria has left India behind as the country with the most people living in extreme poverty.
For the time being, the only deductible reason Nigeria didn’t get Covid-19 vaccine finance, according to reports quoting undisclosed sources, is that the country currently has various ongoing programmes tackling the spread of the virus.
The above explanation suggests that economic-emerging countries would soon receive their fair share of the money, as the statement clearly indicated that the funding is continuous.
Meanwhile, The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, NCDC, is yet to comment on the sidelining of Nigeria from the support programme.