“In every community, there is a class of people profoundly dangerous to the rest. I don’t mean the criminals. For them, we have punitive sanctions. I mean the leaders. Invariably the most dangerous people seek power. While in the parlours of indignation, the right-thinking citizen brings his heart to a boil.”
– Saul Bellow, Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature (1976)
Why is Nigeria not working? Why is Nigeria on the brink of financial collapse and even political crisis? Several reasons have been given and solutions proffered for the way forward. Yet we are still stranded and even going down the tube by the day. One major reason for the trouble Nigeria is in at this present time is the quality and spirit of leadership in the present dispensation.
This is one area we should focus our searchlight on if we want to find solutions to our problem. What kind of spirit dwells in the heart of the men and women who rule Nigeria – the spirit of Pharaoh or of Moses; of a master/ lordship or of a servant leader/shepherd? The people in our government houses, do they see themselves as servants and as stewards or as lords and masters and even taskmasters?
Indeed “the most dangerous people seek power” – especially in Nigeria.
Let me first begin by expressing some appreciation that our governors are showing some concerns about the parlous state of the economy and want to do something about it. This should be commended.
However, it is a fact that the policies and governance styles of our governors and their predecessors from the beginning of this Democratic Dispensation in 1999 largely contributed to the very state in which we now are. This is why I am in doubt whether our governors needed any commendation, to begin with.
Some days ago the Nigerian Governors Forum ( NGF) – a body unknown to the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria – sent a Memo to the President on what they believed should be the way forward to arrest the looming economic catastrophe.
This is my opinion and comment regarding the Memo submitted by the Nigerian Governors Forum to the Presidency
more than a week ago.
Nigeria is in trouble, to be honest. It is in a crisis, a multidimensional crisis. It is now so bad that the government’s revenue is not even enough to meet expenditure and debt servicing obligations; the government now has to borrow or incur a debt to service debt. Barring divine interventions, Nigeria is now headed on the path of financial insolvency and economic immobility and if not collapse.
Can an economy collapse? Yes, of course. Most certainly, this is a possibility and Economic History shows this possibility. The German economy actually collapsed in the 1930s which led to the rise of Nazism. The Ghanaian economy also collapsed which led to the return of the military. There is a nexus between economic meltdown and the rise of totalitarianism.
Nigeria should never have been in this mess and some of us have been warned for years and knew by the Law of Causes and Consequences, that Nigeria would one day end up here. This is the terminus that the rulers of Nigeria, both the seen and the unseen rulers – the vaunting and lugubrious souls who claim to own Nigeria – planned for us.
How did Nigeria get here? That can easily be explained. It is not rocket science.
Nigerians have been very unfortunate. This nation has been very unlucky. It is like a person falling into the hands of his mortal enemies, a lady trying to escape a rapist then falling into the hands of gangsters and rapists. That is the case, in the story of Nigeria.
It is a long story which we shall tell future generations.
However let me say that the last two governments/ administrations Nigeria has had, have been very tragic, very incompetent and even unpatriotic. The first, the Goodluck Jonathan administration was most insensitively corrupt and wayward; the second, this present Buhari administration is even worse having added to corruption, mismanagement, incompetence, nepotism, ethnic and religious bigotry and divisions within the polity. A government that came to eradicate corruption has become the postal child of graft, corruption and unutterable vileness and perfidy.
I now know that to crash a nation an enemy action from without is not even necessary; all that is required is a government or two that does not know what it’s doing e.g., a Jonathan government followed by a Buhari administration.
*Financial Misappropriation*
Before I go into the substance of my comment I want you to see two picture so you can see the problem we are in.
Professor Soludo analysed that under Goodluck Jonathan Nigeria lost nothing less than N30t ( thirty trillion nairas) and that is being conservative. How much of this has been investigated, recovered; and how much of it has been returned to the national till or relooted?
Look at it:
According to Chidi Okereke Nigeria recovered the following from Abacha’s loot:
[See,https://gazettengr.com/chidi-okereke-all-the-times-sani-abacha-showed-us-hes-the-greatest-sugar-daddy-ever/]
“July 1999: President Olusegun Obasanjo discovered and froze $420 million in assets
May 2002: President Olusegun Obasanjo made a deal with the Abacha family for the recovery of $1.2 billion.
November 2003: During Goodluck Jonathan’s tenure, Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala claimed that $149 million in Abacha loot from Jersey Island had been recovered.
September 2005: Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala stated that Switzerland had returned $458 million in cash and $2 billion in assets.
March 2014: Switzerland repatriated $380 million of Abacha funds.
June 2014: Liechtenstein returned $227 million of Abacha’s loot
August 2014: United States Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that they were returning $480 million to the Nigerian government, the largest amount of money ever returned in the organization’s history.
2016: Switzerland confirmed that they had returned $723 million so far to the Nigerian government from Abacha loot.
December 2017: Switzerland also promised to release $322 million dollars more of the Abacha loot
May 2019: £211 million was found in a bank in Jersey, United States.
January 2020: The latest discovery is a fresh $321 million in a bank in Jersey. On January 29, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) approved the signing of an agreement with the Island of Jersey and the United States of America for the repatriation of the stolen assets.
May 4 2020: In a statement from the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, it was disclosed that approximately $311,797,866.11 of the Abacha loot was repatriated from the US and Jersey.
August 14 2020: Ireland signed a memorandum of understanding with the federal government to return €5.5 million looted by Sani Abacha.
August 2022: Nigeria and the United States government reached an agreement on the return of about $23 million of more Abacha loot. The Attorney General of the Federation, Malami signed the agreement.
Total (approx) is $4 billion (cash) and $2 billion (assets) since 1999.
*Summary:*
*Under Olusegun Obasanjo*
Frozen : $420m (1999)
From Abacha family: $1.2b
From Switzerland: $458m( cash)
$2b (assets)
*Under Goodluck Jonathan*
Total money returned by foreign governments:
Switzerland: $380m
Liechtenstein: $227m
U.S Dept of Justice: $480m.
Jersey Island: $149m
*Total: $1.236b*
How much of this was saved or accounted for? Okonjo Iweala might be able to answer that question. One of the things she said they used the money for was Rural electrification in towns and villages that have no names and cannot be traced or verified.
* Don’t also forget that under that government and for much of the time crude oil was selling for as much as $100 per barrel and nothing was saved. Instead, this same government drew down the Excess Crude Account and even borrowed money to squander at the same time. Total debt as of 2010 when Jonathan came was N5t ( five trillion) but when he was leaving in 2015 it has become N10 t ( twelve trillion naira)
*Under Muhammadu Buhari*
Total money recovered by foreign governments and local:
*Switzerland: $322m
Bailiwicks of Jersey: $311m
Ibori loot. : $4.2m
EFCC from a company for NPA: $100m
SSS Apartment in Ikoyi: $43m
From a developer FMBN: N53b
Padded budget: N189b.
This is aside from the debts in excess of N5t discovered by Project Lighthouse, owed the Federal Government in arrears of taxes.
Total N 1 trillion
[ According to APC Legacy and Awareness Campaign, Guardian 2/9/2021]
* Malabu oil scam: $74m.
* In 2016 the agents of this government disclosed that it had recovered $9.1b looted fund but refused to name the culprits.
EFCC RECOVERIES
Through the Justice Salami Panel, we were made to understand that:
Between January & August 30, 2017, EFCC recovered:
N409,270,706,686..75, £231,119.69 ( pounds)
$69,501,156.67 (dollar)
€610,816.20 ( Euro)
Dirham 443,400.00
70,500 riyal.
This includes $40m jewellery from Mrs Diezani Allison- Maduekwe, consisting of – 419 bangles, 315 rings, 304 earrings, 267 necklaces, 77 brooches and 74 pendants with luxurious homes in Nigeria. ( I told you Nigerian elites are demonized, shackled with depraved mentalities)
In addition, N329b from oil marketers recovered from the phoney subsidy. (Magu, EFCC, August 2017)
Between 2015 -2019 over N1.3t was stolen from Nigeria by just 32 persons including corporate bodies recovered but their names not given.
How was this money spent?
This is where the case becomes interesting and funny:
* Prof Ibrahim Gambari, Chief of Staff to the President disclosed that the recovered foreign money has been spent. How?
$322m spent on Social Investment Program (SIP) – i.e feeding the poor, students etc
$311 for Presidential Infrastructure Development Fund. No further details. If you are laughing, I am not kidding.
How about the recoveries by EFCC from local thieves?
According to Salami Panel findings:
* Assets were distributed to government bodies including the Presidency. No one saw it, no one documented it. They recovered assets and they shared the assets by themselves. That is the government that came to fight corruption. It does not even know the meaning of corruption. ( Don’t laugh, please)
* 14 fraud cases involving N118b and $300m were abandoned, EFCC also failed to remit N48b in recovered foreign and local currencies. ( Do you blame them? Followers take their cue from leadership)
* It was also discovered that 330 assets were not declared by Ibrahim Magu which included navy ships, real estate, and motor vehicles, according to the Presidential Committee on Audit of Recovered Assets.
* Ibrahim Magu himself could not account for N431m in security votes for his office between 2015 -2017
* In April 2019 Buhari directed Ms Ahmed, Finance Minister to dispose all unclaimed looted assets recovered since 2015 within 6 months.
There was no open tender, or public announcement soliciting the public to participate in line with transparency and accountability, but the same circles within government and cronies of government or party. Or possibly the same people got their loot back through the backdoor.
Buhari himself confessed that his government received looted funds to the tune of N152b in 2021. ( See _Thisday_ 21 June 2022)
How much was realized and from whom? Who knows!
This is how a government that came to fight corruption became the postal boy of graft, greed and corruption.
In May 2021 Socio-Economic Right Accountability Project (SERAP) an NGO called out to Buhari to disclose in detail how the returned Abacha loot and other money was spent. It specifically asked for how $700m Abacha loot, £4.2m Ibori loot and another £80m Ibori loot promised was spent. No response, instead Buhari asked the National Assembly for approval for a loan of $6.1b from China and other bodies.
*EXCESS CRUDE ACCOUNT*
We have seen how returned loot from foreign governments and even local money was spent in a questionable manner, now I want to look at one other area, the Excess Crude Account. After this, I will build a strong case to impeach the substance of the memo by the Nigerian Governors Forum.
The Excess Crude Account was created by the President Obasanjo administration to save the Excess above the budget benchmark to serve as a cushion due to volatility in the oil market.
The following is the balance of the Account at various times since 2007.
June 2007: $9.43b
January 2009: $20b
January 2011: $4.56b
2012: $8.65b
2015: $2.07b
2019: $324m
January 2020:$324m
February 2020:$70m
2021: $60m
2022: $35.37m
August 2022: $376,655.0
[ Source: BudgIT Nigeria@BudgITng, with other details]
Let us now break this down to see how each government has done.
*Yar’ Adua administration (2007-2009)*
Met the account: $9.4b
Left it at: $20b
*Goodluck Jonathan adm.*
Met it at $20b
Left it at $2.07b
*Buhari administration*
Met it at $2.07b
As of today: $376,655.
How was the money spent? How was this cushion, this buffer depleted that Nigerian currency is now in the open without cover leading to free fall?
Goodluck Jonathan’s administration has a lot to explain but the people who would hold him to account have their own accounting to do.
From investigation the EXCESS CRUDE ACCOUNT was depleted in three major ways:
* As augmentation for the shortfall in monthly allocation/ sharing by the three tiers of government ( federal, state and local governments.)
* As slush funds for phoney subsidies for fuel
* Social Investment and security issues
For example, in 2018 $1.76b was taken out of the Account as a Paris Club refund to states.
Another $380m was taken as the first tranche purportedly to procure equipment for Army, Navy& Defence Intelligence Agency etc.
Goodluck Jonathan’s administration too took $1b for security to buy weapons.
Meanwhile, the new chief of army staff said he could not find any weapons. Recent probes and the Dasuki confessions later show that much of the money purportedly taken for the army or security went somewhere else.
Nothing for university or tertiary education. Perhaps ASUU won’t be on strike now for the last six months.
Buhari has also given donations on our behalf:
$1 million for the Taliban in Afghanistan. Since this money was not appropriated by the National Assembly it could be that it was from a slush fund just like under Jonathan’s administration.
Recently it also admitted giving N1.14b to procure 10 jeeps for the Niger Republic which the Defence Minister of Niger, AlKassoun Indatou has denied receiving. ( See ThisDay 18/8/2022)
I have gone to this level of detail to show something: Nigeria does not have a revenue problem, it has a management and accountability problem. We don’t have a *money* problem, we have an *idea* problem.
It is not that money is not coming in it is the rate at which it is going out. Nigerian public fund leaks through many pores that even if revenue comes more than twenty times than it presently does, we would still be broke within a short while. Until these holes are plugged and blocked it is a waste of time trying to raise revenue.
The NGF memo is based on the flawed fundamental premise or belief that Nigeria has no money and therefore must raise taxes and stop subsidies. It is not so. The problem has always been waste, fraud, misappropriation, etc.
*Response to NGF Memo*
I now provide specific responses to the Memo which was presented under three headings. I present the NGF memo in bold and my own response in ordinary font.
A *: To Reduce FGN expenditure*
It is true that Government needs to reduce expenditure but much more than that it needs to reduce waste, and unnecessary expenditure rather than just curtailing spending.
*1. Eliminate PMS subsidy/ under- recovery to save N6-7 trillion*
It is not really a subsidy that should be eliminated but the graft and bastion of corruption that it has become. I expect the NGF to have asked why and how Nigeria now spend such a humongous sum on fuel subsidy rather than asking for total abrogation.
Under Goodluck Jonathan even with all the graft on the subsidy that later came to light we know how much we were spending and the amount that was consumed daily and imported by NNPC. That was when the economy was more vibrant than this and the industries were operating at full capacity. So why do we now consume more fuel at a time we are in recession and many industries have shut down?
It is true that the value of the naira has fallen but this does not explain why the quantities imported in terms of volume is higher today than when the economy was at full throttle.
There is only one explanation: fraud and graft.
The other day the House Investigation Committee says the profile of 23 of the companies supplying fuel cannot be found. [ See Vanguard, 28 July 2022]
Obviously, so much fraud and corruption take place in the fuel subsidy regime just as it was under Goodluck Jonathan’s administration. It is even probably worse now under this regime.
The NGF as a stakeholder should have asked for the unravelling and dismantling of this iniquitous system of fraud rather than asking for complete abrogation, which means more burden on the masses.
2 *. Eliminate N NPC’s Federation-funded projects – ( N300b)*
The NNPC is one of the most opaque and secretive organizations dealing with public funds possibly on earth. It generates revenue and spends as it likes or disburses what it likes. Its many secretive and dedicated accounts are hardly audited. Successive governments have used those accounts as slush funds to make emergency millionaires and billionaires and to oil their parties.
NGF should have asked for more transparent and accountable governance, and public auditing of accounts rather than recommending stopping its national projects.
*3. Cap Social Investment Program (SIP) and National Poverty Reduction with Growth Strategy (NPRGS) budgets to N200b to save N570b*
The real question should be how much of this Social Investment Program gets to the poor, the intended target? This is one area where this government and its agents perpetrate fraud against the public. For instance, this government claims to have spent N500m on school feeding in two states at a time the whole nation was under a lockdown. How about that?
Serious graft and unutterable vileness and corruption take place under this nebulous nomenclature. Indeed, the roads to hell are paved with good intentions. The NGF should have asked for a more transparent and even probe of these transactions under SIP rather than asking for a reduction of its budget. How much of this money actually gets to the poor? And how much is cornered by corrupt officials who superintendent the fund?
*4. Eliminate extra-constitutional deductions from FAAC to save N100billion*
I agree. All deductions from FAAC are illegal according to law.
*5. Reduce SWV items for SDG and NASS Constituency projects to save N300 billion*
The NASS Constituency projects are one of the avenues for fraud and waste of public funds with their substandard projects, poorly conceived and shoddily executed. It is unethical. The whole idea should be abrogated completely. It is the role of government to execute projects not individuals.
*6. Reduce duplications ( e.g empowerment programmes) and waste to save N100 billion*
Excellent recommendation. I already said the same above.
B. The second section of the NGF Memo deals with the reduction of personnel costs of the Federal Government.
This is much more serious than Nigerians realize. Almost 70 % of the revenue of government goes into recurrent expenditure made up mostly of salaries and wages of public servants. It is certain that if Nigeria will make progress something must be done. Spending more than 70 % on less than 2% of the citizenry and leaving less than 30% for capital expenditure is not the way to go especially when you have to borrow money to pay.
It is against this backdrop that we view the recommendation by the NGF. Nevertheless, certain elements in the recommendation need to be fine-tuned.
Again my comments:
*8. Offer federal civil servants above 50 years (a) a one-off retirement package to exit the service ( save N350b), and employ lower cost more ICT- compliant youths and women graduates*
What we need is actually a holistic treatment, a complete transformation of the civil service to meet 21st-century challenges of public administration, not a token adventure or sacrificing a segment of the age grade because we needed to save money. I do not support removing entire senior civil servants in a blanket operation. We cannot even afford to remove such an entire class of civil servants. We need their experience which the ICT- compliant youths cannot provide.
Instead, let us have a phased restructuring of the civil service. There is nothing tha00t our civil service is doing today that cannot be achieved by 50% of its present size across the board, if properly trained and mobilized. This should be the goal which must be achieved in phases of 30%, 60% and finally 100%, to arrive at a 50 % overall reduction. The resulting service should them be fully mobilized, highly paid, motivated and disciplined ready to drive public administration into the knowledge era of the 21st century.
9 *. Begin implementation of the updated Stephen Oronssaye Report to save N1 trillion)*
Excellent recommendation. An important recommendation in the Oronssaye Report is that government agencies are duplicated and should be merged to save money. This is the best way to go now to save this nation from financial haemorrhage.
*10. Expedite privatization of non-performing assets to save billions of naira.*
There you go again. Privatization. The question NGF should answer is this: has privatization worked in Nigeria?
PHCN was privatized, has that made more power available for the nation? Instead, the Discos have become liabilities to both banks, the government and citizens. The government still has had to give money to companies supposed to have been privatized in order to stave off total collapse.
The history of privatization in Nigeria is a history of fraud, fraudulent transactions, cronyism, pilferage, assets striping, outright stealing, and collusion which one author calls “greed on speed.”
Privatization is not an option for us because it will most certainly be characterised by fraud and transferring public assets to privately connected individuals for “chicken change.” The public is the loser. That has been the trend and will be worse even now under this incompetent government.
A recent revelation is the CBN trying to sell Polaris Bank for a mere N40 billion after rescuing it with N1.2 trillion of public money. And who is the intended beneficiary? It is no other than Auwal Gombe, IBB’s in-law. [ See Gazette, 2/8/2022]
This is the type of crony capitalism and financial stupidity that you will have under privatization, especially under this corrupt and hypocritical government. Any suggestion of privatization now is a recipe for financial chaos, poverty and collective immiseration. I do not buy it.
*12. Planned 22% increase in salaries in 2023 to be reconsidered*
Instead, it should be in phases. Let the poor, the junior cadre preferably Grade Levels 1 – 6 have their salaries increased since they are the direct first-line victims of the disastrous policies of this administration. Other levels can wait till the economy improves.
*13. Reduce fiscal deficit to no more than 2% of GDP in 2023-2025.*
Excellent. No further comment.
*14. Suspension of foreign trips by MDAs for one year to include CBN, FIRS, NPA, NIMASA and NCC*
Beautiful. Very good. Billions will be saved by this recommendation alone.
However, the Governors’ charity should begin from home. They should try this medicine on themselves first. They too should reduce their foreign trips with their aides. The same goes for their wives who have no Constitutional recognition.
The other day the whole world watched in shock and disbelief as all the governors’ wives went to Dubai to congratulate the First Lady on her birthday with their aides. Who was responsible for that expenses? The government of course. This is how public money is drained.
Nigerian Governors should first heal themselves by applying this medicine to their own families.
*Items 16 – 23 deal with taxes: 3% Federal Income Tax for all earning above N30,000.00, Introduction of States Sales Tax of 10% and the suggestion for VAT ( value added tax ) to be raised to 10% then to 15% and ultimately 20%.*
Of all the suggestions in the Governors’ Memo, this is the most insensitive, callous and irritating. To be honest this is the very suggestion that first caught my attention and why I decided to do a counter-memo to the Governors’ Memo.
The idea of taxation is good because it is the way, the original way government generates funds to execute projects and the way the public owns their government.
However it is also a fact, and I am surprised that NGF does not know this, that a major disincentive to business and why business has a short life span in this nation is the multiplicity and duplicity of taxes from different tiers of government. The list of various taxes being suggested by the government does not include Local Governments who also find their own way to tax and forcefully extort businesses in their areas.
This is against the backdrop of existing challenges faced by business concerns like power, low capacity utilization, foreign exchange, inflationary trends, difficulty in accessing loans etc. What government should be focusing on, is how to alleviate the burdens of Industrial concerns not compound them.
Nigerians are already reduced to poverty under this administration the kind of poverty they have never seen in record memory. The poor are already poorer. We should be thinking of making their burden lighter not increasing it. That is the way of Pharaoh and his taskmasters; increasing burdens and tasks on the poor. But then, we know where Pharaoh ended and his taskmasters were: the bottom of the sea.
Under this administration, Nigerians now pay more for fuel and diesel. This in itself is an indirect tax. Every deposit in the bank is taxed, and every recharge on the phone is taxed. The VAT has been raised under this administration which is another tax on consumption on the people.
Still our Pharaohs who eat free food, use free fuel, and live in free and secured houses at public expense are not satisfied. They want more taxes on the poor and businesses. This is aside from the massive fraud that has been unearthed in tax administration both at the state and federal levels.
Rather than recommending an increase in taxes upon the already financially prostrate and traumatized citizenry, why is NGF not looking inwards?
* In most states today there is a Pension Law solely for governors and their deputies and political office holders after just 4 or 8 years of (mis) rule. It is one of the most unconscionable experiments in legal brigandage and criminality. Yet most of our governors who want taxes raised to provide money for government collect these pensions, without qualms.
Some governors are now in the Senate, some are ministers of government thus drawing salaries and allowances yet possibly still collecting pensions from their states. The same persons from the same government in the same nation.
Nigerian Governors are entitled to several allowances solely for them. Why have they not suggested reducing or removing these allowances to save the economy instead of raising taxes and introducing of new taxes?
Security Votes are another source of money where our Governors get slush funds for all manner of things, which they don’t account for. Why not abolish this source of corruption and sleaze if you genuinely love Nigeria and wish the economy a speedy recovery? Pa Michael Ajasin governed in the Second Republic without taking a Kobo of security vote because the Ondo people could not afford it. Same for Lateef Jakande of Lagos State. Yet the two states were more secure than any of the states you now govern.
I am also surprised that your Memo has nothing to say about the extreme and nauseating remuneration of the National Assembly, I am worried that you are not bothered that a senator in Nigeria takes home around N30 million in a month so that around 25% or more of the national budget is devoted to National Assembly, and this financial carnage goes on under your nose without so much as a whimper of protest or remonstration except to ask for more burden on the poor, the have nots, socially disinherited – made more so through your collective misgovernance and mismanagement. Indeed St. Paul was right: Some men’s sins go ahead of them to Judgment while for some they follow after.”
There is nothing more to add or say. A word for the wise is enough.
In closing, I need to say that the real problem of Nigeria is not so much a lack of revenue as I have shown here and can still show with enough facts at my disposal. Our problem is mismanagement. Government revenue leaks through several holes such as waste, corruption, pilfering etc. Even as bad as things are we don’t need to borrow this much, through prudent management and cutting off of waste and loopholes there would still be enough for all our needs.
*Waste and Questionable Spendings in Government*
As proof of what I am saying consider the following facts now in the public domain:
In the first quarter of this year alone:
* Nigerian Upstream Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) admitted that of the 141 million barrels in the first quarter of 2022 only 132 were recovered, and 9 million barrels were stolen. Do you know what that means?
* According to Dataphyte, Nigeria spent N8.05 trillion on national security in the last six years. Yet are we secured? Our soldiers complain they have no ammunition.
* The money spent by Buhari on petrol subsidy in 6 months exceeded the revenue it got from crude oil sales by N210 billion.
* The Excess Crude Account has been drawn down by this government from $ 2.1 billion in 2015 to $376, 655.0 in 7 years. By May 29 next year, nothing will be left there by this government despite the loans and returned loot.
In addition, consider the following areas of massive waste and corruption without transparency or data for independent verification:
* F.G. spends N12T billion on school feeding monthly. ( Guardian, 11 April 2022)
* Agric Ministry: Buhari regime uses N18.9 billion to clear bush. ( Peoples Gazette)
* NNPC spent N100 billion on 4 refineries processing zero oil. ( Legit Jan. 31,2022)
* Termites eat up N17.128b expenditure evidence NSITF.
*FG trains 177 youths in smartphone repairs with N5.9 billion ( Punch)
* We deployed N100 billion to unemployed youths and small businesses – Keyamo.
Need I go on? So you can see that Nigeria did not vote for any change in 2015, they only exchanged one kind of Pharaoh for another.
In short, the problem of Nigeria is not money but mismanagement and accountability issues.
Thank you, dear reader, for your patience.
Have a wonderful day at work.
Moses Oludele Idowu is a Researcher and Writer, Chartered Engineer and Management Consultant. He is also an Apostle to the End-Time Church.