African Agency in IMF Loan Negotiations: Nigeria’s Experience with Programme Ownership

This study examines the concept of programme ownership in the context of IMF lending to Nigeria, investigating the extent to which Nigerian authorities have exercised genuine agency in the design of adjustment programmes and the formulation of conditionality requirements, as distinct from externally imposed prescriptions. The agency deficit in IMF programme relationships has been a persistent critique in African political economy scholarship, with borrowing governments often described as reluctant adopters rather than genuine co-designers of adjustment frameworks. Drawing on the principal-agent model and postcolonial political economy, this research analyses the negotiation dynamics of Nigeria's most recent IMF engagements from 2019 to 2024, including Rapid Financing Instrument access during COVID-19 and technical assistance engagements on monetary and fiscal policy. The study employs a qualitative process tracing methodology, drawing on IMF staff reports, Letters of Intent, Nigerian Ministry of Finance documentation, and semi-structured interviews with officials who participated in IMF negotiations. Findings are expected to show that Nigerian ownership of IMF programme content is meaningful but constrained by information asymmetries, staff capacity gaps within the Ministry of Finance, and political incentives to externalise politically costly policy changes. Recommendations address building Nigeria's sovereign capacity for programme negotiation. Keywords: IMF, programme ownership, Nigeria, African agency, conditionality.