Until the letter from the tempestuous Central Bank Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, got leaked to the press, Nigerians knew absolutely nothing about any unremitted funds
I think it is best to start off this Sunday by congratulating our dear president for finally finding the courage to relieve himself of the burdens both Princess Oduah, former Minister of Aviation, and her colleague, Orubebe, of the Ministry of the Niger Delta, had put on him. Orubebe has severally been accused of corruption, ranging from non-disclosure of some assets in his declaration as well as making spurious claims of paying for some phantom projects. Even the House of Representatives has found some of these weighty enough to order an investigation. It has been suggested, back home in his own Niger Delta, that, under him, the East-West road will remain a pipe dream. None of these meant a thing to the president; rather, while lesser charges were being pursued in Usain Bolt fashion by the anti-graft agencies, Orubebe, protected by the presidency, never came under their radar but remained one of the president’s closest allies. The case of our dear princess, commander of the Jonathan N-2-N campaign of 2011, and her two luxury toys, is too recent and putrefying enough to delay us here. Some smart Alecs are talking of the restoration of some facilities at the airports but I ask, if the prices of the armoured cars were padded, who says Nigerians were not shortchanged in those other major items of expense? What do we know of the process of hiring the contractors; can it pass the test of incorruptibility? However, Nigerians need to be congratulated that, for a season, at least, until the next campaign, these individuals will not daily assault our decency as a people.
The PDP, sleaze masters that they are in that party, has become customary to mastermind some hefty financial heists whenever a major election is in the offing. In 2003, apart from a top gun of the stock exchange corralling some high heeled members to contribute huge sums of money, a sum of N300billion was supposedly voted for roads only for then President Obasanjo to later ask his friend, and Minister of Works, Chief Tony Anenih, where the roads built with that huge sum were located: “where are the roads?” hollered Obasanjo. Nigerians are still waiting for the answer aeon years later. Also, in what they never thought could later ground the country for weeks, the PDP, ahead of the 2011 elections, arranged to siphon huge funds from the petroleum subsidy vote to fund its hugely expensive 2011 campaign.
For that to happen, a former chairman of the party was ensconced as the chairman of the relevant agency and before Nigerians knew what was happening, the list of petrol products importers ballooned to high heavens with companies ostensibly belonging to the children of two former PDP chairmen and other influential members of the party conspicuously on it. You only get the full import of this scheme if you remember that the same government had earlier entered into an import agreement with a company named Trafigura, fined 1 million Euros in Amsterdam in July 2010 for dumping toxic petroleum waste on Cote d’Ivoire killing scores of people. According to Farooq A.Kperogi in his article ‘Biggest Scandal In Oil Subsidy Removal Fraud’, the same Trafigura it was, which the Jonathan government contracted to take 60,000 barrels of crude oil per day in exchange for refined products of equivalent value estimated at around $3 billion a year, whereas a third of that amount could have revived the country’s refineries.
For this government, it matters not if Nigerians have their health compromised as long as they make money to finance the next outlandish campaign. This then was the precursor to the removal of a so-called ‘subsidy’ on petrol which grounded the entire country and did not end until some were lost.
Here we are with the 2015 elections approaching especially at a time the ruling party is gasping for breath having been thoroughly shattered by internal contradictions arising from many years of surviving on impunity, exacerbated by a chairman who threw his weight, needlessly, all over the place, arrogating to himself powers never conferred on him by any party organ.
And lo, and behold, Nigeria is confronted again by about the most stupendous public accounting challenge, being creatively rationalised as legitimate, but certainly, un-appropriated, expenses. Until the letter from the tempestuous Central Bank Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, got leaked to the press, Nigerians knew absolutely nothing about any unremitted funds. And it would not be until about three months after the letter that the president would now scramble a face-saving meeting of the NNPC, the Ministry of Finance, the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and the CBN which then narrowed the alleged $49.8 million to between $10billion and $12billion, still leaving at least $2billion unaccounted for.
Sanusi has since come back to say that the actual unremitted amount is $20 million. Deposed Sanusi at a senate hearing: “NNPC shipped $67 billion worth of crude, but what came to the CBN, after all reconciliation, stands at $47 billion. Let us know what happened to the remaining $20 billion.”
If any evidence of high profile duplicity is needed in all these, it is the rather untenable clam of the NNPC Group Managing Director that although the president may have, as far back as the Yar’ Adua presidency, removed subsidy on kerosene, this directive was not passed down to the NNPC. Even if this were correct, since when has ignorance become justification for an illegality and has the legal dictum ‘ignoramus non juris excusat’ been abrogated? Even if these were so, are Nigerians to now understand that no agency of government brought this to the attention of a humongous NNPC? The GMD must tell his stories to the marines because I sincerely believe that he is just being clever by half but you bet, this is the story line they will stick to, come rain, and come shine. Like in the case of the oil subsidy removal, in which some companies claimed that ships which never visited Africa delivered fuel cargoes in Lagos, and were paid subsidy in billions of naira, we are again being taken through the same chicanery and high profile scam.
Unfortunately, it is most unlikely that anything will come out of all the investigation since big money is involved. I therefore align myself with the view that, and I quote a source that should know: ‘It is already looking like the scandal over the unremitted funds will go the way of all scandals – under the carpet since, instead of dealing with the issue, President Jonathan has been doing what his government does best: finding scape-goats and buying time for a bigger scandal to break’. Or why on earth can the president not order an international forensic audit to look at this gargantuan mess once and for all. This is necessary because external economists are in agreement that the figures are just not just adding up. Using official data, analysis by CSL, the stock-broking arm of Nigeria’s First City Merchant Bank, points to a $24.3bn discrepancy in 2012 between the market value of declared production by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and actual remittances to the state. Also, Charles Robertson, lead economist for Renaissance Capital, an investment bank, identifies a persistent monthly gap of $1.5bn and asserted that the $26bn discrepancy from January 2012 to May 2013 would explain Nigeria’s fiscal problems. He noted that figures from the Nigeria Customs, the IMF and from the country’s main trading partners “are gloriously inconsistent”, concluding that over-invoicing imports by the NNPC is a common method to get cash offshore.
If President Jonathan is not complicit in all these, he should order an external forensic audit today.
