BY Muazu Elazeh

I have tried in vain to justify the French government’s recent disbursement of € 1 million, about N1.8 billion, to 19 Nigerian Civil Society Organisations (CSOs). Each time the thought crosses my mind—and it does almost every day—I get this gut feeling that France may have a sinister motive. As I fight the quarrel within me, I keep hoping I am wrong.

The French Embassy said the grant given under the French Embassy Fund for Civil Society Organisations is to drive grassroots development in the country.

The Embassy’s political counsellor, Bertrand de Seissan, noted that the funding would provide financial and technical support to empower the organisations to tackle pressing challenges of gender inequality, economic vulnerability, and community resilience.

France claims the intervention’s priority areas are combating gender-based violence, promoting women’s socio-economic integration, fostering sustainable livelihoods for youth and vulnerable groups, and strengthening community resilience through advocacy and partnership.

CSOs based in Benue, Bauchi, Enugu State, Imo, Kaduna, Kano, Kogi, Lagos, Nasarawa, Niger, Oyo, Zamfara and the FCT, are listed as beneficiaries.

However, listening to de Seissan, I couldn’t help but remember the issues that were raised after the United States president, Donald Trump, halted funding of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Scott Perry told the world, I must add, with consternation, that the USAID was funding Boko Haram.

In Borno state, which is the epicentre of the Boko Haram terrorist group, the state government, at different times, accused some donor-funded non-governmental and civil society organisations (CSOs) of aiding terrorism.

Are these funds a curse or a blessing to Africa? Dambisa Felicia Moyo’s ‘Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa’ keeps coming to my mind. In this seminal book, published in 2009, the Zambian-born economist lampooned the aid industry, describing it as both cancerous and counterproductive to growth and development on the continent.

Moyo stated, and very rightly so, that Africa has little to show for the over $1 trillion received in development aid in the past 50 years. These vast sums have failed to guarantee economic growth and reduce poverty.

Many Western apologists tend to say that if the aid has not yet developed Africa, it is not the fault of the giving nation but of the corrupt and inept leadership of the receiving nation, which has turned this aid into an avenue for self-enrichment.

However, it is far more than that. There is a clear case of conspiracy between the donors and the elites who are handed these funds that have been consistently used as an instrument of making Africa and Africans perpetually subservient. The latest disbursement by France is not different.

One thing is certain, the timing of the disbursement by French Embassy, coming not too long after France’s traditional allies on the continent-Niger, Chad, Mali, Burkina-Faso, severed their relationship with Paris, and amidst the widespread allegations that Paris is doing all it can to court Nigeria to enable it balance for whatever economic losses it may have incurred from the radical departure of its longstanding allies, makes it more suspect, in my humble opinion.

For fear of being repetitive, it must be noted that these Paris’ former allies cited different reasons, including an overbearing influence and interventions in various areas- military and economic, for severing the relationship with their erstwhile colonial master.

Have the events of the recent past, including our President’s repeated visits to Paris where he recently visited to observe his working leave, not lent credence and importantly, give some form of credibility to the widespread concerns that Nigeria is positioning itself to fill in the vacuum created by the severance of relations with France by Niger Republic and others?

It is difficult to convince any discerning Nigerian that France was merely playing the good kid on the block. There are strings attached, and the earlier we accept this fact, the better. To diffuse this string, the security operatives must monitor how these funds are expended. Each CSO must be profiled, and their spending must be closely watched.

When you have a nation like France pumping N1. 8bn into your economy unsolicited, you don’t need anyone to tell you that there is a motive. As it is often said, there is no free lunch even in Freetown.

Elazeh is a columnist with the Nasarawa Eye, writes from Abuja.