Federal Govt Gives World Bank 6-Month Ultimatum To Disburse Approved Loan

The Federal Government has issued a point of warning to the World Bank, threatening to abandon lending arrangements if disbursements on approved project funds are not completed within six months.

The ultimatum was delivered on Wednesday by the Accountant-General of the Federation (AGF), Dr. Shamseldeen Babatunde Ogunjimi, during a courtesy visit by a World Bank delegation to his office in Abuja.

“If approvals take more than six months, the Nigerian Government may no longer honour such arrangements,” Dr. Ogunjimi stated, framing the warning not as a repudiation of multilateral engagement but as an assertion of the country’s rights as a responsible borrower obligated to service its debts.

He urged the World Bank to fast-track its internal approval processes and ensure that project funds earmarked for Nigeria are released promptly, warning that prolonged delays risked undermining the government’s appetite for such facilities altogether.

Dr. Ogunjimi’s remarks represent one of the most direct public challenges by a senior Nigerian fiscal official to multilateral lenders over the pace of project financing, and come against the backdrop of longstanding concerns about bureaucratic bottlenecks that delay the realisation of infrastructure and development investments tied to foreign borrowings.

The AGF, who received the World Bank team led by Mrs. Treed Lane, Manager of the World Bank Team, made clear that Nigeria’s status as a debtor nation — not a beneficiary of grants — entitled it to more responsive treatment in the processing of its funding requests.

The press statement issued by the director of press and public relations at the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation (OAGF), Bawa Mokwa, did not disclose the specific loan amount under discussion, the date on which the facility was approved, or further details of the project or sector it is intended to finance.

It is therefore unclear from the official communication whether the ultimatum pertains to a single facility or a broader portfolio of World Bank-financed projects awaiting disbursement in Nigeria.

This gap in disclosure limits the ability of stakeholders — including legislators, civil society organisations, and the investing public — to independently assess the urgency and legitimacy of the government’s position.

It also raises questions about the degree of transparency surrounding Nigeria’s active World Bank loan pipeline, which has historically included multi-billion-dollar interventions in power, agriculture, health, and social protection.

Beyond the ultimatum, Dr. Ogunjimi used the meeting to signal that the OAGF is responding to compliance concerns previously raised by the World Bank, particularly around the quality and timeliness of public financial management documentation.

He disclosed that the 2023 Audit Report will be submitted to the Office of the Auditor-General for the Federation within two weeks, with work on the 2024 and 2025 audit reports already in progress — a development that, if delivered as promised, would mark a significant narrowing of Nigeria’s longstanding audit backlogs, which have historically complicated the country’s engagements with multilateral creditors.

The AGF also addressed concerns relating to the digitalisation of the Government Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS), the platform that underpins federal budget execution, revenue tracking, and expenditure reporting.

He assured the delegation that obsolete infrastructure underpinning the system is being replaced with modern technology, with the aim of improving efficiency and service delivery across the federation’s financial management architecture.
World Bank Encourages Digital Reform Momentum

In her remarks, Mrs. Lane congratulated Dr. Ogunjimi on his recent appointment as the African Chairman of the Association of Accountants-General, a regional recognition that underscores his standing in continental public finance circles.

She further encouraged the OAGF to sustain its reform momentum, particularly in digitising its operations and ensuring the timely submission of professional financial statements to the Office of the Auditor-General, which she linked to the broader goal of strengthening seamless public financial management processes across Nigeria.

The World Bank remains one of Nigeria’s largest multilateral creditors. As of its most recent portfolio disclosures, the Bank has active financing commitments in Nigeria spanning infrastructure, education, health, and social protection — though the specific facility referenced in Wednesday’s meeting was not identified in the official statement.
Context and Significance

The AGF’s ultimatum carries weight both as a fiscal signal and as a negotiating posture. Nigeria’s debt service obligations have become an increasingly prominent issue in public finance debates, with a significant share of federal revenue going toward external debt repayments.

In that context, government officials pressing lenders to disburse funds more rapidly reflects a desire to ensure that projects financed by foreign borrowings are implemented within the fiscal cycles for which they were designed — rather than approved in one budget year and realised several years later.