The Nation Newspaper

Category: Editorial

  • Buhari and the returned loot

    Buhari and the returned loot

    President should focus on bringing looters to book

    President Muhammadu Buhari’s disclosure that some of those who reportedly looted public fund under the Jonathan administration have started returning same quietly to the treasury might have been intended to assure  Nigerians of the government’s seriousness to fight corruption; but it has spurred controversies across the land.

    President Buhari, who gleefully made the announcement in obvious response to insinuations that not much change has been seen or felt since he took over the reins of government, is an indication that he is yet to fully appreciate the depth of the problem, and the demands of democracy.

    The president should realise that he is acting on behalf of the Nigerian state and people whose money was siphoned and misapplied. He therefore owes the people a duty of full disclosure. Who are those who embezzled the funds, thus depriving the people of basic necessities of life, and are now secretly making returns?

    It is also the duty of the president to get the appropriate agencies of government to probe the circumstances and determine how much was actually stolen. It cannot be left for the looters to determine how much to return and when.

    Besides, corrupt enrichment is a crime against the state. It is therefore punishable. It is out of tune with the laws of the land that thieves be shielded. It amounts to encouraging such acts.

    But, in doing this, the president ought to appreciate the limitation to his powers. He is the Chief Executive of the Federation, not the judiciary. All alleged looters should be arraigned before the courts, tried and if found guilty, the penalties spelt out in the statutes should be fully applied. Only then could it be said that corruption is being fought by the Buhari administration.

    It is apposite to ask the government the account into which the recovered money is being remitted. This has become important in view of allegations that some money recovered in similar circumstances in the past could not be traced. In recent times, too, anti-corruption czars have been charged with mismanaging such funds. It behoves the president to apprise Nigerians of everything concerning this. We call on him to put a stop to this surreptitious return of looted funds, and give a full account of what has been so returned. The Federal Ministry of Finance should speak out on the matter.

    We advise that the president to desist from encouraging mere refund of whatever is negotiated behind the doors and refrain from making such comments.

    Nigerians have lost so much. The education system is in a shambles and this has affected the quality of learning, thus impairing development. The real sector of the economy is shrinking daily. As such, the manufacturing sector has, in the past three quarters, recorded negative growth. This has translated to unemployment for the teeming youth and is a threat to the health of the nation. It is certainly a frightening prospect for national security.

    At a time new ministers and other officials of state have just been appointed, and others being considered, the president should not be seen to be condoning corruption in any way. He should remain focused and consistent in presenting himself as having zero tolerance for corrupt practices. Leakages in the system account for more than half the published expenditure yearly. This much was once disclosed by a former chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu.

    Moreover, it is unfortunate that the president continues to make important policy statements and breaks news to the foreign media and Nigerians in the Diaspora. While acknowledging that Nigerians abroad retain their rights, it should be realised that his primary duty is to interact with the people at home who elected him and to whom he is primarily responsible. No other world leader succeeds or expects to succeed by holding his people and critical institutions in contempt.

    The Nigerian media was fully involved in the battle for change that produced him as president. The news that the president would not appoint ministers before September was first broken while on a similar foreign visit, he said ministers are mere noise makers and the civil service should be credited with sustaining governance in the country.

    The battle for cleansing the society should not be left for the president and his team. It is a battle for all patriots. If the anti-corruption war is to be won, we all owe it a duty to the fatherland to scrutinise processes and mechanisms adopted in enthroning new values in the society. In this case, we call on the civil society community, especially the network of organisations involved in the campaign against corruption and those promoting good governance practices to step up advocacy, reminding the president at all times of his pledge to Nigerians during the election campaign.

  • Theatre of the absurd

    Theatre of the absurd

    • That is the unflattering situation at UBTH, a supposed centre of medical excellence

    Even if the headline suggests some probable hyperbole, the accompanying picture of the facility is sobering: unhinged tiles, a ramshackle table, a filthy floor and a trinity of dingy plastic buckets: that is the inside of one of the facilities at the University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH), Benin, Edo State.

    “We operate patients in reptile-infested theatres”, went the damning headline, in Punch, quoting Dr. Omoregbe Owen, president of the UBTH Association of Resident Doctors (ARD).

    “The theatres are in the worst conditions, as surgeries are carried out by doctors who are sweating on patients,” he said.  “Insects and reptiles come in freely into the theatres and wards because of the dilapidated state of facilities.”

    Now, this is more than damning. For starters, it is trite that wards and especially surgical theatres must be sterilised, so that an untidy hospital environment does not breed further infections for the patient. For UBTH, if this claim is true and things are really as bad as its ARD had painted it, it would appear quality assurance has broken down. That is indeed tragic, for it could herald a hospital, traditionally a place of treatment and care, turning into a disease-breeding centre.

    Besides, Dr. Nosakhare Bazuaye, consultant haematologist and coordinator of UBTH stem cell transplant centre, triumphantly announced on November 9 the hospital had carried out its second successful stem cell transplant. Are these avant-garde surgeries also done in its dingy and filthy theatres, complete with invading reptiles and sweaty medics?

    These allegations — if indeed they are allegations and not sickly realities — the UBTH management must address and give convincing answers to.

    Convincing answers here mean speedily remedying the scandalous situation, but not some sophistry. Even a primary medical centre (the lowest in the hierarchy of medical facilities) should not be in such a shambles, not to talk of a supposed tertiary facility — and a medical centre of excellence to boot!

    That is why the UBTH Public Relations Officer, Mrs Kehinde Ibitoye’s reaction to the story does not cut it at all. Is it the UBTH ARD claim she is not aware of? Or the mockery of best medical practices that the teaching hospital has sadly become?   Prof. Michael Obadin, the hospital chief medical director, should therefore do the needful and start acting fast to correct the anomaly.

    This is because the hospital’s problems would appear multi-faceted. Aside from run-down hardware as x-ray units, CT scan and radiotherapy machines, which the ARD claims are always breaking down despite alleged Federal Government’s investment in these equipment, it also appears to suffer an acute shortage in clinical staff.

    “The hospital that was manned by over 150 house officers is currently covered by 60 house officers [less than half, which should have been 75], while a ward of over 50 patients is being run by three nurses,” Dr. Owen insisted. “It is shocking to reveal that the last time resident doctors were employed in UBTH was in 2011,” he added, “and in the intervening four-year period, over 400 resident doctors have exited without any replacement.

    The UBTH authorities should address these issues and bring relief to the hospital’s medical publics. Making UBTH a theatre of the absurd, from its supposed dizzying height of centre of medical excellence, is absolutely unacceptable.

  • Prison emergency

    Prison emergency

    •Nigerian prisons trapped in prolonged and sustained emergency

    It is certainly not hyperbolic to state that Nigeria’s prison system has been marooned in what can be described as a prolonged and sustained state of emergency. The latest statistics indicate that the country’s 240 prisons, with a total installed capacity of 50,153 inmates, harbour no less than 59, 121 convicted and awaiting trial prisoners.

    Indeed, about 68 percent of the country’s prison population (39, 577) have not been convicted, with a significant number of this awaiting trial, for several years. These figures might in reality mask the degree of overpopulation in the country’s prisons since prison records are hardly computerised and their reliability cannot be guaranteed.

    Several reports have over the years lamented the pathetic and utterly inhuman condition of Nigeria’s prisons. The cells are overcrowded and poorly ventilated, with inmates herded together like animals. There are severe shortages of beds, mattresses and other basic amenities for a minimal level of civilised existence. Toilets and other sanitary facilities are grossly inadequate, thus increasing the inmates’ vulnerability to a myriad of infectious diseases.

    The food served prison inmates is not only inadequate in terms of quantity; it is also of negligible nutritional value. This intolerable situation breeds a vast and complex network of corruption in which prison officials profit from inmates able to offer bribes for marginally better services and facilities than those on offer for the less privileged members of the prison community.

    As if this state of affairs is not bad enough, there have been alarming reports that prison inmates nationwide may be thrown into hunger from December because of a backlog of N6 billion debt owed the prison service ration and gas contractors by the Federal Government. The contractors have reportedly not been paid for food and gas supplies to the prisons since January this year.

    In a petition to President Muhammadu Buhari, the contractors claim they have exhausted their financial resources and can no longer source money to do business. Their plight is compounded by the fact that they have had to resort to obtain bank loans to fund their business, with the attendant accumulation of huge interests.

    Urging the president to “mobilise funds from anywhere to settle our bill before it is too late”, the contractors in understandable desperation stressed that “if prisoners and inmates of the nation’s prisons are not fed for two days, they could go haywire and the consequences are not good to imagine”.

    While we call on the appropriate authorities to take urgent steps to clear the debt backlog and avert any crisis that can worsen the already dire situation in the prisons, far-reaching reforms to overhaul and thoroughly sanitise the entire system have become more imperative than ever. For instance, food supply contractors are over the years believed to have reaped fortunes from the business. Yet, the quality of food in the prisons is atrociously poor.

    As a result, it has been reported that many inmates cook their own meals within the prisons. There is thus a thriving prison black market for food stuffs allegedly run by warders and their relatives. This in turn implies the existence of hundreds of stoves in congested cells and the ever present danger of fire outbreaks in addition to other environmental and health hazards. The desperately poor who cannot afford to cook their meals have no choice but to consume the intolerable food served in the prisons.

    We call on the Federal Government to immediately declare a state of emergency in Nigerian prisons. This should be followed by radical measures to enhance funding, check corruption, accelerate the judicial process to drastically reduce the number of awaiting trial inmates and improve the quality of food and health care, among others.

    In a reformed prison system that places appropriate premium on rehabilitation, for instance, nothing precludes prison inmates from being productively engaged to grow their own food.

  • The President should talk to us

    The President should talk to us

    SIR: The metamorphosis of our democracy has come with different faces.  There was President Obasanjo who bullied us to submission with his brashness.  There was President Yar’Adua who despite administrative paralysis re-engineered our relationship with the Niger Delta.  There was President Jonathan who in his sleep-walking manner watered the ground for our politics to grow.  Today we face President Buhari, who like an oracle, listens to our supplications and ushers godlike directives.  We must appreciate the realization that our country is better with our growing democracy.  Otherwise, consider the dictatorship of military regime.

    It is beginning to dawn that we have a president who does not talk back to us.  This is not to fail his leadership so far but adopting a Buddha-like persona does not inspire the best politics in a democratic setting.  The power of democracy is inherent in its propensity to openly allow issues to be critically analyzed.  We can respect the personality of the president to be solemn.  Perhaps, that could be his leadership style.  We cannot be psychics, and unless he addresses us, we are lost looking at a stoic statue.

    The president has to lead the frontline on healthy policy debate.  It is the approach for good governance to thrive.  Introspection is logical in one’s personal life but a leader in a democracy must bring his vision in the open for discourse.  On many issues, he has kept mum.  The citizenry has to assume that he has the solutions ready.  The recent case of money owed to oil marketers is a disappointing example.  He has to run to National Assembly for approval of payment after the matter has escalated and with its undue consequences.

    It can be shown that the president is not adept at debates. His admirers argue that he believes that action speaks louder than words.  There could be no better time for him to put his demigod image to relevance than on the nation’s fight against corruption.  As if true to character as his campaign mantra, change, manifests, he is pacing hastily to bring back integrity to the polity.

    Drilling deep into the notion of the president being mute on public discourse, it becomes puzzling.  The irony is that Nigerians have watched him on television stations abroad give convincing interviews.  This indicates that he respects the power of democracy.  He knows that these Western countries will not welcome him if he does not abide by the dictates of their system.  We will take it to be a lack of trust in his leadership ability if he continues to deny our news media the opportunity of a political dialogue.

    Hope is slowly being restored to our system.  Thanks in great measure to the quiet sensibility of the president.  He should go further to unmask the façade and assure us that he is conversant with the tenets of democracy.  Doors to robust exchange of ideas should be opened by him.  He should outline his policy decisions to the public to encourage a more enlightened government.  Democracy is too big to be a one man’s affair.

    • Pius Okaneme,

    Umuoji, Anambra State.

     

  • No quagmire

    No quagmire

    •We should not turn a routine political matter to a storm

    Nigeria will continue to witness challenges to its constitutional integrity. But that is the making of any vibrant democracy.

    Kogi State added its name to that evolving narrative in the past weekend when, in the ferment of an election, a governorship candidate, Abubakar Audu, gave up the ghost. This is the first time that a candidate would pass on in the brio of an election fever. The All Progressives Congress’ (APC) candidate was laid to rest Monday according to Muslim rites.

    But the aftermath has been almost funereal, but certainly eerie. Some have called for the death knell of the polls and asked for an encore. Others have hailed it as the affirmation of the people’s will and the majesty of democracy.

    The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) announced that the polls were inconclusive, and noted that the outcome of the people’s choice in 91 units had to be determined before a final declaration of victory.

    So, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), buoyed by some lawyers, say the APC celebration was premature. While the APC, also buoyed by lawyers, say the law is clear and the party has won the polls.

    Sometimes politics can stand in the way of clear wisdom. INEC declared the polls inconclusive when the APC candidate, Audu, had shot ahead of his opponent with 41,000 votes. Audu was jousting incumbent Governor Idris Wada. The reasoning behind the polls’ inconclusiveness, according to the INEC resident electoral commissioner, was that a balance of 49,000 voters inhabited the 91 undetermined units. But in the age of the Permanent Voter Card (PVC) and card reader, that premise rings hollow. About 25,000 of the 49,000 have PVCs, according to some accounts. That means if, for the sake of argument, all the 25,000 vote for the PDP, the final tally weighs in APC’s favour. INEC has yet to inform us how many of the 49,000 have PVCs. This is not transparency. It did so in order elections.

    If a candidate has enough votes to defray the votes of an undetermined precinct, it means the uncounted votes cannot change the fortunes of the leading candidate. That is the story in Kogi State.

    The other issue is even potentially more contentious. With Audu’s death, the question now boils as to whether his deputy, Abiodun Faleke, should take over. Some lawyers have argued that Faleke cannot take over because the election was about Audu. Others disagree and point to precedents that showed that Audu’s death need not vitiate the victory and the exercise.

    Because of this, the idea of a constitutional crisis pervades the air. But we have seen precedents in this regard in the past. Although we did not see death, at least we saw absences and dislocations.

    In the case of Rotimi Amaechi that eventuated in his ascending the position of governor of Rivers State, the Supreme Court specifically noted that the constitution recognises parties. In clear terms, the apex court noted that it is parties that contest elections. If that is the case, then the victory at the weekend was APC’s as much as it was Audu’s and Faleke’s. But the INEC has asked the party to substitute Audu while the PDP has cried foul.

    We believe the air of constitutional angst in the offing is artificial and part of the lack of grace in our body politic. But it fuels the excitement of the process, and we hope that if the matter goes to court it does not mitigate the will of the people who voted last week. Audu, now quiet in his grave, embodied that will.

  • Beyond the Paris siege

    Much as we must unite against terror; we also must seek a world where justice reigns supreme

    Two weeks later, the French authorities are still wondering how a band of terrorists from the self-styled Islamic State of Iraq held Paris under siege in three well-coordinated attacks lasting two hours and killed 129 innocent residents in the worst carnage that city has witnessed since World War II. More than 350 people were wounded, 99 of them critically.

    The attacks came less than a year after terrorists struck at the offices of the satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, killing more than15 people. They justified the attack on the ground that the magazine had published material blasphemous of the Prophet Mohammed and Islam.

    Now, as then, defiance and solidarity have replaced the fear that gripped the city. Parisians have returned to the boulevards and the cafes and the restaurants that define their city. The alleged mastermind, Abdelhamid Abbaoud, who was thought to be in Syria, was killed one week later in his hideout near Paris.

    Retaliatory air strikes ordered by French President François Hollande in the ISIS capital Raqqa began the day after the Paris attacks. Pressure has been mounting on President Barak Obama to go beyond the air strikes the United States has been staging for months and commit American troops to battle to destroy ISIS.  Russia, which had been carrying out bombing raids on armed opponents of the Syrian regime of President Hafez Assad, is set to turn its air power against ISIS, following reports that the explosive device that blew up a Russian airliner over the Sinai three weeks ago, killing all 240 passengers and crew on board, was planted by ISIS.

    There can be no justification for the terrorist attack from which Paris is slowly recovering, or the one that brought down the Russian passenger airliner over the Sinai.  ISIS and its fellow travellers in terror are operating under a false ideology.  They claim to act in the name of Islam, but fellow Muslims have denounced their actions as a perversion of Islam. Their bombs do not discriminate between Muslims and adherents of other faiths.

    The international community must stand united to resist their resolve to impose their pernicious ideology on humankind and make fear a constant companion.

    But we should remember that al Qaeda and ISIS and their mutants did not grow out of nothing.  There was no al Qaeda in Iraq until the United States and the United Kingdom led a Western coalition to invade and occupy Iraq, purportedly to rid it of “weapons of mass destruction.” Iraq had no such weapons.  By the time the invaders were done Iraq and its world-class infrastructure had been destroyed and more than a quarter of its population had fled to neighbouring countries for safety, with civilian casualties numbered in hundreds of thousands.  Central authority collapsed, creating an opening for al Qaeda, and later ISIS

    The Libyan State exists today only on paper, following a regime change orchestrated by the United States,  France and the UK, under the pretext or stopping President Muammar Gadaffi from turning the armed might of the state against an armed opposition seeking to  overthrow him.  An air strike on Gadaffi’s convoy as he fled from one city to another in search of a safe haven virtually delivered him into the hands of his opponents.  They killed him, much to the approval of the West.  Today there is no central authority in Libya, only feuding tribes and their armies.  And ISIS and al Qaeda have since found fertile ground there.

    And then, there is the festering Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in which the Western nations look the other way as Israel, in defiance of United Nations resolutions, continually expropriates Palestinian land to build settlements it does not need, and as it systematically reduced Gaza to what has been called the world’s largest open-air prison.

    Justice is indivisible. You cannot deny it to some and save it for others. To quote the Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, justice is the first condition of humanity.

    Although there will always be a lunatic fringe actuated by terror for its own sake, a good many of those we  call terrorists see themselves as seeking by self help the justice they have been denied.

    Justice will have to be a major component of any meaningful strategy to end or curtail terrorism.

  • Petrol shortage and NNPC’s lies

    Petrol shortage and NNPC’s lies

    SIR: Petrol shortage in Nigeria, an oil producing country, has become a regular occurrence, an albatross and part of our lives, and NNPC’s sing song too, that they have more than sufficient stock to last us numerous of weeks/months as they may choose to mention is also not new.

    NNPC and DPR are always talking about panic buying; if motorists panicked and by today, buy tomorrow they would not continue to buy, except such  motorists have fuel dumps in their houses which is most unlikely. Rather that face the truth, NNPC would continue to insult the intelligence of Nigerians by saying they have sufficient reserve. What in the first place drives the people to panic buying? Are they not same people who at ordinary times drive their vehicles in and out of the filling stations without stress or panic, or have they just discovered some extra usage for petrol? If NNPC has applied a system of distribution for decades during scarcity and the system does not work, can’t they sit down and think of an alternative?

    NNPC’s so-called mega stations, where they advise citizens to go and queue, and all the major marketers put together – say Total, Mobil, Mrs, Forte Oil, Capital, Nipco, Oando, Folawiyo etc. if added is not up to one third of the total network of filling station in this country. Yet for years NNPC during scarcity would sideline all the private marketers that constitude about two-third of product distribution network to the public, and decide to work the majors only, while accusing the same marketers who have always brought instant relief to the public, of diversion. Why do they not divert during normal times?

    During scarcity, NNPC would deliver products to major marketers “who are trusted for non diversion”, and expect them to wet all stations throughout the country with products. It is no longer a secret that this same majors – Nipco, Folawiyo, Capital etc. would now begin to sell these products to filling station owners, the same people NNPC accuses of diversion, at N110, N120/litre less transportation. Transportation is usually N3 and above per litre depending on the destination. Then the same NNPC through DPR will now turn round and be harassing the poor private marketers for not selling at N78/litre. Then those who can afford to buy at this cut throat price, particularly, marketers from the North, would buy but would not able to sell at their filling stations for fear of DPR. They will now find alternatives for disposal and DPR will begin to shout diversion. Who should be blamed, NNPC or their major marketer agents or the poor man who bought at N120/litre?

    Mainwhile, all these private marketers are licensed by DPR, and their licenses and bulk purchase agreements entitle them to the supply of about four or five trucks of PMS in a week. But these people end up getting, at the best one truck in a month from same NNPC depots, notwithstanding  the fact that most of them have the capacity to sell one or more trucks in a day. That shows something is wrong with the system, particularly when those major marketers from whom the private marketers take refuge and find solace at ordinary times become incapacitated due to one disagreement or the other with the government.

    The government knows that once these people do not import, scarcity is the end result. Yet the government/NNPC would wait complacently in their offices until this end result comes, and then begin to talk about panic buying. Who is fooling who?

    Unfortunately, most of us laboured for this change in President Muhammed Buhari’s election, but this is not the change we voted for. Things have to be done differently from now if NNPC and its cohorts want to see different result.

    • Prince Adeniyi Festus,

    Lagos.

  • Making TSA work

    Making TSA work

    •REMITA should be reviewed

    Allegations of fraudulent practices concerning the Treasury Single Account (TSA) have highlighted the need to undertake a comprehensive review of REMITA, the e-collection platform on which it is based.

    The most serious of the charges appears to be the claim that N25 billion had been fraudulently received by SystemSpecs, REMITA’s owners, ostensibly in transaction fees via the TSA scheme, allegedly in violation of Section 162 (1) of the 1999 Constitution. The Trade Union Congress (TUC) further complicated matters by alleging that REMITA was bringing in N25 billion a day for the company. The Senate has directed its Joint Committee on Finance, Banking and other Financial Institutions and Public Accounts to investigate the matter.

    As a unified structure of government bank accounts, which provides a consolidated view of its cash resources, the TSA’s advantages cannot be over-emphasised. This is even more so of Nigeria, where the massive misappropriation of public funds has convinced the Buhari administration to fully implement the TSA programme which began under his predecessor, former President Goodluck Jonathan.

    Since its full operation commenced in August, it has seen government revenues flow from the nation’s banks to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). Banks which attempted to conceal accounts have been penalised, while revenue-generating parastatals whose operations might be hampered by TSA have been granted waivers.

    The huge quantum of cash in government revenues remitted to the CBN has attracted questions regarding the size of SystemSpecs’ transaction fee. In contrast to the allegations that it took N25 billion, whether daily or as a total sum, the company has said N7.62 billion was collected in transaction fees since the scheme commenced in May 2012, and was shared by SystemSpecs (50 per cent), the 20 participating banks (40 per cent) and the CBN (10 per cent). The company also claims that transaction volumes reached N1.36 trillion, as opposed to the N2.5 trillion being alleged by its traducers.

    These controversies point to other issues. Since REMITA is essentially software, why is it that there does not appear to be the option of making a one-time or periodically-renewable payment for licensing it, as is the case for other banking software? There is the similarly fundamental question of exactly how the deal was struck, especially how the sharing formula of the transaction fee was arrived at. It does seem to be obvious that SystemSpecs is picking up a princely amount for what amounts to merely the installation of software.

    It has been argued that the one per cent transaction fee is relatively low, and is apparently better than the higher percentages negotiated by various collection agencies that existed before the TSA. However, the sheer size of the transaction volumes makes a compelling case for a reduction, possibly to 0.5 per cent; there is no reason why a government cost-reduction measure should become a major profit centre for a private firm.

    A comprehensive review of the TSA would have several benefits. It would reassure those who have misgivings about it; it would be in keeping with the transparency and accountability mantra of the Buhari administration; it would be part of a process of continual refinement which can only make the platform’s operations more efficient.

    As the country adjusts to the necessarily rigorous demands of the TSA era, Nigerians would do well to avoid criticising the e-collection platform for partisan political purposes. A number of political figures from the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) have excoriated the TSA system and have latched on the N25 billion controversy as proof of their allegations. Given the party’s inability to fully implement the system when it was in power, such accusations are unhelpful and do not lessen the advantages of the system. If the TSA is reviewed in good faith, it will be to the benefit of all.

  • Arms deals

    Arms deals

    •Those involved must be made to face the music

    President Muhammadu Buhari last week ordered the arrest of former National Security Adviser (NSA), Col. Sabo Dasuki, and all those indicted by the military panel set up to investigate the procurement of arms during the regime of Presidents Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan. The panel, headed by Air Vice Marshal O. N. Ode (rtd), in its preliminary report, allegedly made startling revelations of grievous corrupt practices against the former NSA, some retired defence and service chiefs, over the procurement of arms, between 2007 and 2015. The former NSA, who is also facing separate charges in court for money laundering and unlawful possession of arms, has however denied the allegations.

    In his press release over the allegations, presidential spokesman, Femi Adesina, said:”The report has unearthed several illicit and fraudulent financial transactions”. He stated that the total extra-budgetary interventions articulated by the committee is N643,817,955,885.18, with the foreign currency component of the fund standing at $2,193,815,000.83, noting that there were also grants from state governments and from funds collected from DSS and the police.

    He also stated that of 513 contracts awarded at $8,356,525,184.32, N2,189,265,724,404.55, and another foreign currency; 53 were failed contracts amounting to $2,378,939,066.27and N13,729,342,329.87. He noted that the foreign currency spent on failed contracts was more than the $1 billion loan sought from the National Assembly, at the height of the Boko Haram insurgency.

    We are appalled at the grave allegations against these former national security officials. While we join other anxious Nigerians to await the prosecution of those so far indicted by this panel, we consider it very strange that our financial regulatory system could allow an individual, however highly placed, to have a near limitless access to our common patrimony. As claimed by the presidential spokesman, “it was discovered that the former NSA directed the Central Bank of Nigeria to transfer the sum of $132,050,486.97 and 9,905,473.55 in another foreign currency, for an un-ascertained purpose”.

    This type of untrammelled access to national resources by a government official, is undemocratic and unlawful, and is a throw-back to the military era, when the executive and legislative powers were entrusted in a single individual. As noted by the presidential spokesman, “the findings made so far are extremely worrying, considering that the interventions were granted within the same period that our troops fighting the insurgency in the north-east were in desperate need of platforms, military equipment and ammunition.”

    We recall that many officers and men of the armed forces were court- martialled for refusing to fight the insurgents, for mutiny and for cowardice. We recall also that some soldiers out of fear, strayed into neighbouring countries. Considering this committee’s interim report, it is possible that these military personnel who have been punished, deserve to be freed. As also observed by the spokesman, “had the funds siphoned to these non-performing companies been properly used for the purpose they were meant for, thousands of needless Nigerian deaths would have been avoided”. Indeed, the failures of the military in the recent past caused Nigerians trauma, needless deaths, abductions, displacements, and international humiliation.

    Considering that the former NSA has denied his involvement in what can best be described as the humongous looting of our scarce national resources, we hope that the Federal Government will expeditiously bring to justice those involved in the scam. If the panel’s report is indeed true, we urge the government to ensure that every kobo stolen from our national coffers is recovered. It is also important that the panel concludes its report, for the immediate prosecution of all the leeches that have caused Nigerians needless pains.

     

  • As good as gold

    As good as gold

    • But first, the Federal Government has to stop its solid minerals policy summersaults

    A PIECE of news just underscores how policy contradictions had under-developed the solid minerals sector. President Muhammadu Buhari’s new cabinet must seize the moment to make things right in this largely neglected sector. News has it that the Federal Government had reportedly abandoned a N26.4 billion World Bank-assisted scheme, aimed at developing and exploiting solid minerals.

    That scheme, the report claimed, was the biggest solid minerals intervention fund in the world. The scheme, extended to the Federal Government in 2004, and put under the Sustainable Management of Mineral Resources Project (SMMRP), was to tackle the following areas: build a world-class mining cadastre office, do an airborne survey to generate high resolution geological and physical data, promote Nigerian minerals endowment, construct a multi-million dollar solid minerals laboratory in Kaduna and also build a training institute in Jos, aside from setting aside $10 million as credit scheme for small-scale or artisanal miners and mining communities.

    The grant, an interest-free facility, has a 35-year tenor and a 10-year moratorium. There is even a follow-up: another $80 million facility, after a seven-year satisfactory disbursement of the initial loan. The overall goal of the scheme is to strengthen Nigeria’s long-term institutional and technical capacity to manage mineral resources, in a sustainable and environment-friendly and sensitive way. It takes no special acuity to know that this scheme, if well handled, could point to the economy’s new growth area, particularly with the sharp drop in resources from crude oil.

    Yet, over three ministers of solid minerals, parts of the project, particularly the non-self sustaining aspects, have lapsed into a coma, if not outright abandonment. That is unfortunate; and should not be allowed to continue. That is where Kayode Fayemi, the new Minister of Solid Minerals, comes in. Urgent efforts should be made to revisit the projects; and give life to the abandoned ones as quickly as possible.

    That might just be a good area to kick-start the Fayemi era in solid minerals, in the context of the positive change the Buhari Presidency promised, while campaigning for votes. Indeed, the whole solid minerals sector needs an urgent tweaking. First, is the extant legal framework. Right now, solid minerals mining is an exclusive preserve of the central government.

    But there is need to liberalise the sector, in consonance with Nigeria’s federal structure. Even if that would entail a constitutional amendment which does not come easy, mining laws should be amended, such that states with minerals find it easier to leverage the trove in the bowels of their earth to attract joint projects from foreign investors.

    On this score, the Federal Government would do well to consult with and actively engage states with solid mineral resources, before inviting foreign investors that can help mine these resources at mutual benefit to the three parties: the investors, federal and state governments.

    The demonstrable expertise for such easily comes from Australia and South Africa, twin countries whose economies thrive on mining. The United States too, though not so much into mining, is known to boast such technical skills. The most important thing, however, is to invite credible companies that can add value, and also reinforce the local value chain.

    Even with official dormancy in mining, a lot of illegal activity goes on in artisanal mining. Indeed, it is claimed that illegal mining is a N4 trillion business. That is huge!  What to do with these ‘Illegal’ miners? Definitely not to ban them, as is being clamoured by some quarters. Instead, the government should legitimise their operations under the new foreign technical partners.

    That way, their ‘illegal’ business is legalised, with the big investors buying from the artisans, and government collecting taxes from the transactions. With prompt implementation of sound policies, solid minerals should contribute its own quota, as foreign exchange earner for Nigeria. With the downturn in oil, solid minerals, with agriculture, should be the country’s new growth area.