At last, after wasting our precious time for over four decades, our Western-trained experts are now admitting that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the two principal pillars of the so-called Bretton Woods system evolved in 1944-1945, are no longer relevant to the development needs of Africa and other developing economies.

It has taken the current global financial collapse to force the truth out of our cowardly silence over the years. Earlier this year, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, former Commonwealth Secretary-General, speaking at an event in Ibadan, repeated, for the umpteenth time, what African patriots and political thinkers have been saying since the days of emancipation from slavery and decolonisation, namely that Africans need African solutions in order to achieve genuine independence and overall political, economic and social progress.

Anyaoku is a seasoned man of the world who over a long career, has mastered the political and diplomatic intricacies of how nations act purely in self-interest. At Ibadan, he stressed the futility of hoping on the so-called Washington Consensus for solution to Nigeria's and Africa's problems. Our Central Bank Governor, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, has at last woken up to what Anyaoku and historic figures such as Nnamdi Azikiwe, Kwame Nkrumah and Moshood Abiola advocated until their throats dried up out of coarseness.

Countless past and present black scholars and intellectuals could not draw the attention of our political leaders who were bent on pleasing the West. When Nigeria's President Umaru Yar'Adua, at the inception of his administration, had a chance in Accra, Ghana, last year to lend weighty support to a United States of Africa, he demurred and said such a vision was unrealistic.

Today, neither Nigeria nor the rest of African Union is relevant in the global economy, as world leaders get ready for a global economic conference in Washington D.C on November 15. Only South Africa, traditionally grouped with Europe, even in the days of apartheid, has been invited. The rest of the continent is disdainfully viewed as merely a market, one which should not even be consulted because it is weak and dependent.

According to Soludo, who gave the 40th inaugural lecture of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, on 30th October, 2008, "No two economies are the same, and every economy is, in a sense, developing, to the extent that no economy ever reaches the end of development. We have argued that the attempt by the so-called new heterodox view (post-Washington Consensus-Consensus) to craft a unified static economic theory for the largely disparate group of developing countries is at best tenuous..." To me, this was news.

When and where did Prof. Soludo ever say such a thing in the past? He went on to posit that "the orthodox Washington Consensus is not the Book of Revelation. It needs rigorous adaptation or modification in specific circumstances."

All the above is not new thinking in the holistic Pan-African context. Earlier, in his address, the CBN boss had boldly declared that, in view of the catastrophe which has overtaken the world's financial and stock markets, the Bretton Woods institutions had become irrelevant with their obsolete theoretical and analytical tools. Isn't this what those of us who nostalgically remember our Pan-African heroes have been saying all along?

Prof. Soludo, former federal ministers - Drs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Oby Ezekwesili - are admirable public figures who have stamped their marks on our political economy. Yet, sincerity demands that we tell the truth. Admittedly, since the global meltdown, IMF and World Bank bosses have boldly come out to admit failure and the fact that nations, especially in the developing regions, need to find peculiar solutions to their economic woes.

Only one lone New York-based economist, one Dr. Nooriel Roubini, had predicted as far back as 2006 that mortgage loans anchored on dubious and shaky securities would lead to the crash of credit finance in America and of Wall Street itself. He was laughed to scorn because he was operating outside traditional economic models, that is, without mathematical equations and related quantification analysis.

Today, he is greatly in demand for talks in world capitals, while the IMF and World Bank's shelves are still full of volumes of worthless studies commissioned and obtained at great cost.

It was also gladdening to read the news from Dr. Okonjo-Iweala that Nigeria should resort to its foreign reserves to attend to urgently needed infrastructure and other economic emergencies. Are the funds easily recoverable in present circumstances? On her own part, I do not know if Mrs. Ezekwesili still stands by her firm faith in market forces.

If she had successfully sold our public schools in a country where over 10 per cent of school-age children are not even enrolled, what would have been our state of decay by now? Perhaps, school fees in such schools would have gone up to outrageous levels, forcing thousands more out of primary and secondary schools.

I do not blame our Bretton Woods apostles for our failures. Rather, I blame those who are supposed to be visionaries and philosopher-kings but who were more contented to play good boys to U.S and other Western leaders. Now that the gods we were worshipping have been proved to have feet of clay, what do we do? Visionary leadership is by far superior to doctorate degrees.

I disagree with Prof. Soludo's insinuation that, perhaps, the world needs another Bretton Woods conference in view of our current world condition. The lesson of history is that the Western powers, under the leadership of the United States, used the Bretton Woods system as a self-serving, dominating institutional means of imperialist pursuits, even though the conference was initially summoned under the aegis of the United Nations.

What we need is to reciprocate Washington's rebuff by Nigeria heeding the call made in Accra last year to strengthen the African Union into becoming a federation. We should stop being an import-dependent continent and a dumping ground. As we discuss this topic, many ships are heading for Nigerian and other African ports laden with not only European, American and Japanese products, but also with container-loads of sub-standard products from the Far East and the stronger Asian economies.

Daily, we offload electronic wares, batteries, watches, clocks, clothing and so on that only last a little while. We are also a dumping ground for expired foods, including baby's milk and formulas, expired drugs and chemicals, etc. Learning from the early years of Japan's development and the currently industrialising Asian countries, let us close our markets to sub-standard goods and strive, instead, to produce our own not-so-good ones and manage with them, while perfecting as we go on. Why do we insist on importing the best products when we cannot produce even the most rudimentary? It may be time to summon survivors of Biafra's crude manufacture who produced petroleum and many other goods.

We should also bear in mind that there is no such thing as a totally free market with little or no control, regulation or discipline. Until the World Wars, America, since its founding, enjoyed a 'splendid isolation' from Europe, buying from and selling to no one but Americans. Africa can do largely the same. Japan, China, South Korea, and the Asian tigers people admire so much had stringent controls until they built up their small and medium-size industries.

Prof. Soludo is right that the Washington Consensus is not a Book of Revelation. In fact, anyone reading deeply the prophet Daniel and the Book of Revelation will find many answers to what is currently going on globally. Contemporary Catholic prophecies indicate that, at last, the American-led Western civilisation has ended as far as God is concerned due to godlessness. The Anti-Christ will soon be unveiled.

Nothing useful will come out of the Washington conference of November 15. As incredible as it may sound, the whole world will soon come under the reign of the very son of Satan, the man behind the microchip (Mark of the Beast). See Rev. 13:16-18. He will bring America and the whole world under his grip and nobody can buy or sell again without the microchip, 666, the secret code of the computer, the autopilot, the GSM, credit and cash cards, etc. How terrible indeed it will be for an age that has forgotten its God! (Rev. 12:12).

Mr. Odum, a commentator on national issues, writes from Lagos.