Lagos — Frederick Nietzsche was one of German classical philosophers. He somewhat revolutionized thinking. He was seen as an atheist for his radical thought on religion. But he was an existentialist. He led a school of thought, which influenced the legendary Adolf Hitler in propounding the sadist ideologue of the Arian race. People never reckoned with him while alive. After his internment, they did.

His influence quickly spread after another German existentialist, Martin Heidegger, who wrote that masterpiece, Zein und Zeit (Being and Time) propelled his philosophy and made rational beings to begin to see wisdom and appreciate his works.

In one of such works entitled Thus Spake Zarathustra, Nietzsche sought to create a new world morality. He had looked at the human person and found that all morality and effort end in nothingness. For him, life has no ultimate significance. It is a chaos of becoming as man ends in nothing and is absolutely nothing. For this, he was termed a nihilist. But he would go further to look at man as being unable to achieve his full potentials because of a limit placed before him by religion. This religion is expressed in the understanding of a god who is absolute mind itself. He, as Nietzsche argued, limits man in his effort to achieve fulfillment of his powers. He sees man as having innate ability to rise beyond limits of religion but for god.

For this, Nietzsche created Ubermensch , the superman, who will be the annihilator of all morals. The superman will also release creation from all Christianity's chains. The superman will sort of create a new order, which will enable man live beyond every perceivable limit. For this too, Nietzsche had to destroy god. He actually killed god when he declared that "god is dead"

This reasoning earned him branding as a heretic and his philosophy, the ramblings of a mad man. But he wanted to make being, live for the earth, not just on it. Today, Nietzsche's thought will be easily dismissed as the work of anti-Christ and signs of the end-time by pietists who indulge in revivalist or neo-religionist thinking and expression. They will argue he was sent from the abyss to frustrate man's attempt at seeking the face of God in forgiveness of his misdeeds.

However, I do not intend to discuss the philosophy of Frederick Nietzsche here but to extrapolate his thought and apply it to the reality of developing economies as planned and implemented by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and The World Bank.

To those who suffer effects of stunted economies and lack of growth, IMF and World Bank are enemies. One thing about being is that to be is to become. Whatever is, becomes. According to the law of nature, growth is a process of becoming. It is thus antithetical to becoming if a being, a nation, fails to become or grow.

IMF and the World Bank represent neo-colonialist forces which serve one purpose: To retard growth of developing economies so as not to challenge and put in jeopardy, luxuries enjoyed by developed economies. It is to the interest of IMF and World Bank, that Africa remains perpetually poor. It is to their interest that Africa remains eternally at war. At least, their economic policies will find a market.

The above bodies have over the years, derived maximum advantage from distortions and static motion of the Nigerian economy. It is to their entertainment that Nigerian refineries remain shut. They will find it easy selling the idea of dealing them off as scraps to a Nigerian government, which takes their advice hook, line and sinker, without as much as asking questions.

The logic is simple. If our refineries remain shut, our crude can be sold, valueless, to developed economies, who will refine it, add much value to it and then sell back to us at ridiculous prices. So, even if Nigeria shuts for 30 days owing to a nationwide strike over fuel price crisis, IMF and World Bank will pop champagne and smile. At least, they reap their benefits.

A single barrel of crude sold for refinement abroad, gets in return, several other components, which are put to economic advantage. China earns over $1 billion annually from export of toys. Toys are mostly plastic based. Plastics are by products of crude. They are petrochemical products. Vienna in Austria houses the Organization of Oil Exporting Countries (OPEC) headquarters. It does not export crude but has one of the finest refineries in the world. Its job is only to export refined oil.

If the African economy is strong and viable, IMF and World Bank will sure have a depleted market for their neo-colonialist ideas. This will affect their earnings and cause job loss. So, for them to remain in business and feather the nests of their masters, which are American and European, Africa must remain under developed. Doing otherwise will cause serious and catastrophic distortions in world economy.

Africans need not be in doubt about the agenda of IMF and World Bank. For one, they are agents of influence. They are serviceable as instruments of dominance. They are specific in their programmes. It is for this that Africans will find it pretty difficult leading them as presidents. If an African rises to lead them, he will no doubt, be a puppet. This idea is given expression in the argument of Francis Fukuyama, who served in the United States of America State's Department under the Reagan-Bush era. Talking about the United Nations led by Ghana's kofi Annan, he said, it is "perfectly serviceable as an instrument of American unilateralism and indeed may be the primary mechanism through which unilateralism will be exercised in the future".

His argument leaves no one in doubt about the specific function of the UN and indeed other such international organizations including IMF and World Bank. It is for Mr. Annan's servitude that he remains at the UN. Boutrous Ghali tried to be different, refusing to serve American interest at the UN and was rejected for a second tenure of office.

But back to IMF and World Bank. The more anti-people advice our government accepts from them, the better they feel. It is for IMF and World Bank that Nigeria remains perpetually in debt. It is for them too that Nigeria, despite its endowments, remains an import dependent economy. It is for the benefit of IMF and World Bank that Nigeria cannot export a home made pin.

But again, must we blame the two bodies? The world is a stage and several actors attempt to impress the audience. IMF and World Bank are better seen as actors, or puppet masters. At this point, who the masters are is not necessarily important. But who they deceive to part with their earnings is.

A puppet master at the circus is interested in entertaining his audience. He does so by playing out tricks which children see as real while the wise only laugh away their time. What IMF and World Bank do to us goes beyond the circus. The Nigerian government seems hoodwinked by what the organizations do. It seems to have believed their gospel with dogmatic addiction and laboured to sell some prankish wisdom to its people to help enhance interests if IMF and World Bank in Nigeria.

One thing is certain. These organizations will quickly lose interest in Nigeria if its oil dries up. But before that happens, cant Nigerians do something to salvage their country from the strings of IMF and World Bank?

I think there is much they can do. Japan, China, Malaysia and some other countries on the Asian continent have all rejected the gospel according to IMF and World Bank, and accepted their own gospel, which is peculiar to their situations and culture. Today, they are counted as Asian giants. They killed IMF and World Bank. By so doing, they raised their economies and transformed their societies from one, which was dependent on aid, and loan from IMF and World Bank, to one, which has hope of sustaining itself. Today, products of these countries flood our market. Our importers now find love in electronics, footwear, clothing material, ceramics, chinaware etc from these countries. What more can a nation wish for itself.

But the Nigerian, nay the African government will not care a hoot. Our governments still find some wisdom in clinging to the apron strings of IMF and World Bank. I think we must kill IMF and World Bank, just as the Asian Tigers did. Just as Nietzsche did in killing god and creating the superman who rose above limits to become the annihilator of morals.

Honestly, I do not think Nigeria needs to go on importing telephone handsets from China. I also do not think we must import all that we import. We have the capacity to produce a lot of things. We have the capacity to rise above our current level of underdevelopment. We also have the capacity to surpass Japan in electronics. But all these will remain only as potentials in our national life if we do not kill IMF and World Bank and remove all limitations they have placed on us by way of conditionalities which stifle our collective growth.

Nigeria can afford not to live within limitations and conditions as placed by the IMF and World Bank. It can if it wants to. There is nothing saying Nigeria cannot rise above its current underdevelopment if it kills the twin sinister organizations. None of the countries that have done it has ever gone back begging for alms. Nigeria can do it, but first its leaders must purge themselves of inferiority complex. The feeling by our leaders that since IMF and World Bank have prescribed a particular policy, it must be adhered to, is defeatist and smacks of inferiority complex.

What is most important for every country of the world is for it to become greater than it was. Leaders of nations keep making efforts to see how they could lead their countries out of the lower rung of the development ladder and make life meaningful for their people, not the other way round, as is mostly seen in policies adopted by the Nigerian government. So, we should kill IMF. We should also kill World Bank. We may be seen as African heretics for doing so, but it works. It makes sense to do just that. After all, the bible (apologies to non- Christians) teaches that if our right hand will cause you to sin, severe it.

Uchegbu is on the staff of the Champion newspapers