Nigeria To Quite From Membership Of 90 World Organisations

The Federal Government has resolved to withdraw Nigeria’s membership from 90 world organisations over the financial implications of it’s membership of such organisations.

The decisions was arrived at during the Wednesday weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari.

The FEC mandated a committee to come up with recommendations to it for ratification over the plans to exit the country from the 90 organisations.

At the moment, Nigeria is indebted to the organisations to about $100 million. Its inability to offset the debt is said to have caused the country embarrassment.

The Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, disclosed this to State House correspondents after the FEC meeting on Wednesday.

She said, “Basically, Nigeria is member of 310 international organisations and a committee was set up to review the rationale for our continued membership of such a large number of organisations, particularly in the light of the fact that in many cases, we are not actually paying financial obligations and subscriptions, which is causing some embarrassment to Nigeria and our image abroad.

“It was discussed (at the FEC) that there were commitments made to some international organisations by former governments which were not cash- backed.”

Adeosun explained that the committee set up by the Federal Government to look into the country’s membership of the international organisations had recommended retaining membership of 220 out of the 310 organisations.

“Our subscriptions are in arrears in a number of major organisations. So, the directive of the council is that we should go and reconcile those figures and come back to the Council and have a payment plan to avoid Nigeria being embarrassed internationally,”  she explained.

According to her, the annual commitment by Nigeria to these organisations stands at $70m.

News Source: - Ripples | September 27, 2017.  

Photo Source: - Scan News | December 07, 2015.