The International Monetary Fund’s strained relationship with Nigeria has taken a bizarre turn after an apparent disagreement over a speech made in Washington last week by Olusegun Obasanjo, the country’s president.

The IMF, which agreed with Nigeria to end formal ties earlier this year, has declined to confirm a claim by Mr. Obasanjo that the relationship between the two parties would resume in October.

The issue could embarrass Mr. Obasanjo as he attempts this week to win the backing of the summit of the Group of Eight industrialised countries for Nepad, a plan for African development drawn up by a group of the continent’s states.

The IMF issued a carefully-phrased statement late on Monday in response to Mr. Obasanjo’s claim in a speech last Thursday that the suspension of the IMF programme in Nigeria had been “grossly misunderstood”.

The IMF statement avoided directly contradicting Mr. Obasanjo but failed to provide backing for the president’s claim that the body’s formal engagement with Nigeria would restart on October 1.

“We are continuing to engage with Nigeria and the government and we are providing input and feedback into their home-grown programme,” said Gary Moser, IMF representative in Nigeria. “We have continued to do that since late last year.”

Mr. Moser said an IMF team was in Nigeria and would make a report to the body’s executive board.

The IMF returned to Nigeria in 1998 made an agreement, which ended last October, to reschedule interest payments on part of the country’s $28bn of foreign debt.

Formal IMF supervision of Nigeria ended in March amid claims by the body’s officials that the government was unlikely to meet economic targets in the run-up to presidential and parliamentary elections next year.

President Obasanjo, a former military leader whose 1999 election victory ended 16 years of army rule, has toured the world since he took office in an unsuccessful effort to win greater debt relief for Nigeria.

The president, who is a founder member of Transparency International, the anti-corruption body, is under pressure to show he is honouring pledges to increase financial transparency in Nigeria.

Michael Peel, Financial Times, June 25, 2002