The Facts Behind the Alleged $885m Question: A Rebuttal to Misleading on World Bank Funds in Kaduna
THE FACTS BEHIND THE $885 MILLION QUESTION:A REBUTTAL TO MISLEADING CLAIMS ON WORLD BANK FUNDS IN KADUNA
By Zubair Abdurra’uf Idris
The recent online publication titled “$885 Million in World Bank Funds: Where Is the Evidence in Kaduna?” presents a narrative that deliberately ignores fiscal reality, project implementation timelines, and the development model of the current administration. While citizens have every right to demand accountability, that accountability must be rooted in facts, not in manufactured outrage. This piece seeks to set the record straight.
The claim that “$885 million should have produced visible results everywhere by now” fundamentally misrepresents how World Bank financing works. The $885 million refers to the total portfolio value of ongoing World Bank-supported projects nationally by the World bank. These are not lump-sum grants deposited into a state account. They are program-for-results and investment project financing instruments disbursed in tranches only after verified milestones such as procurement, design approvals, community mobilization, implementation reports, and independent audits. The portfolio includes AGILE – Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment at approximately $80 million, a 4-year program tied to school enrollment, teacher training, WASH facilities, and retention of girls. It also includes ACReSAL – Agro-Climatic Resilience in Semi-Arid Landscapes, which is Kaduna’s share from a $700 million national multi-state project focused on gully erosion control, watershed management, and livelihood support. Other components are SURWASH, KADRAAMP at $20 million, L-PRES at $20 million, and others, all operating on 3 to 5 year implementation cycles with strict procurement and supervision protocols by the World Bank.
To ask “where is the $885 million” two years into a five-year program is to misunderstand development financing. It is like demanding the full value of a four-year degree on the first day of lectures.
What the publication deliberately omits is the debt burden the Uba Sani administration inherited on May 29, 2023. In a recent interview with Channels Television, Governor Uba Sani disclosed that ₦6.7 billion is deducted monthly from Kaduna’s FAAC allocation to service debts contracted by the previous administration. These deductions will continue until 2048. That is ₦80.4 billion annually removed before a single kobo can be spent on new projects. Compounding this, just ten days to the exit of the El-Rufa’i administration, the Kaduna State Internal Revenue Service’s IGR was collateralized for a ₦20 billion commercial bank loan. Despite this, the current administration has paid over 70% of the inherited commercial bank debt portfolio and has made a clear policy commitment of no new borrowing.
No responsible government can simultaneously service that level of inherited debt and deliver expanded schools and roads in every community overnight without plunging the state deeper into the same debt trap.
Contrary to the claim that “the reality on the ground tells a different story,” the evidence is already visible across Kaduna. Under AGILE, there has been rehabilitation and equipping of junior and senior secondary schools across the three senatorial zones, distribution of sanitary pads, scholarships, and conditional cash transfers to improve girls’ retention, as well as teacher training and the establishment of digital learning centers. Enrollment and performance data are tracked and reported quarterly to the World Bank.
Kaduna’s ACReSAL intervention, which is part of the $700 million national program across 36 states, is also delivering results. There are active gully erosion control and reclamation sites in Kaduna metropolis and Zaria. The multi-billion naira erosion control project from Kawo through Tudun Wada to Rigasa is direct evidence of this intervention. In addition, there is watershed management and afforestation activities across 23 LGAs, and livelihood support for communities affected by desertification and flooding, directly addressing the erosion concerns raised in the article.
Under SURWASH, KADRAAMP and L-PRES, the administration has recorded rehabilitation of urban and rural water schemes, spot improvements on rural access roads and market linkages to reduce post-harvest losses, and support for livestock productivity and disease control. Because these are World Bank projects, every contract, Bill of Quantities, and payment is published on the World Bank’s Implementation Status Reports portal and on the Kaduna State Due Process website. Transparency is built into the process, a fact the article conveniently ignores.
The El-Rufa’i administration’s model was borrowing for big-ticket projects and leaving the debt for the next government. The Uba Sani administration has chosen a different path: to leverage grants and intervention funds to deliver infrastructure and human capital development without new loans. This is evident in urban renewal roads and bridges funded from IGR and federal interventions, upgrades in primary healthcare centers and free maternal care, and skills acquisition and entrepreneurship programs for youth and women.
Development is indeed measured by what citizens can see and use. But it is also measured by fiscal responsibility, not by mortgaging the future of children unborn to fund projects for political optics today.
If this is truly about transparency, then the right questions for the opposition are: What are the disbursement versus commitment figures for each project as stated in the latest World Bank ISR reports? What are the timelines and KPIs in the Project Appraisal Documents approved by the World Bank? Why was IGR collateralized and why were debts structured to run until 2048? To divert attention from a ₦6.7 billion monthly deduction to “where is $885 million” is not accountability. It is a calculated distraction by El-Rufa’i loyalists uncomfortable with the reality that Kaduna’s finances are being stabilized.
Kaduna State is not struggling because of World Bank grants. Kaduna struggled because of debt. Governor Uba Sani is clearing that debt, refusing new loans, and using intervention portfolios like ACReSAL and AGILE to deliver targeted, verifiable projects. The evidence is not absent. It is in the classrooms being rehabilitated, the gullies being reclaimed, the water schemes being revived, and in a government that chose to invest in people rather than in debt.
* Zubair Abdurra’uf Idris is a Public Affairs Analyst and Board Member, Nigeria Electricity Management Services Agency, NEMSA.
