Ring True
By Yemi Adebowale;Â yemi.adebowale@thisdaylive.com
The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu, is truly under pressure. This junior minister has spent the last nine days recanting after raising the alarm about the $25 billion contract awarded by Maikanti Baru’s NNPC in controversial circumstances.
Suddenly, this fraidy-cat is now telling Nigerians that his war against Baru is not about corruption in the NNPC but about non-adherence to due process and governance issues. Haba Kachikwu! Are you not aware that awarding contract without following due process is corruption? Failure by the NNPC to abide by corporate governance tenets is also corruption.
The cabal running Nigeria has obviously been mounting pressure on Kachikwu to recant. Clearly, he can no longer handle the pressure. I guess he is also scared of being sacked. This is why this junior minister and Chairman of NNPC Board, has of recent, been speaking from both sides of his mouth. The cabal is still not impressed. For them, Kachikwu has done an irreparable damage to the already tattered image of the Buhari administration by unmasking the irregularities in the contracts awarded by the NNPC. I won’t be surprised if Kachikwu is sacked any moment from now.
Our dear Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo is also under pressure to clear the expensive mess created by groping Kachikwu. Osinbajo has suddenly commenced hangdog and thoughtless activities to defend Baru’s reckless and reprehensible actions. I am shocked that he wants to help cover up this monumental infraction instead of raising the alarm about the imperviousness and weak governance structures in our oil and gas sector. Osinbajo seems unperturbed by the weighty breach of procurement law by Baru. Our dear vice president now wants Nigerians to believe that NNPC did not award $25billion contracts. He is now trying to delude Nigerians to believe that approval to obtain a loan from a financial institution is not a contract. What a country.
A statement issued by fumbling Laolu Akande, Osinbajo’s senior media assistant on Monday explained that “claims on social and traditional media that $25 billion worth of oil contracts were awarded by the NNPC were false.†How come Kachikwu’s petition suddenly became “claims on the social media? I guess Kachikwu’s petition was no longer legible to Akande and his boss.
Series of steps are shamelessly being taken to cover up the NNPC mess. Unfortunately for this administration, many Nigerians have refused to be hoodwinked. Former education minister, Oby Ezekwesili, was apt when she remarked that Kachikwu’s allegations “are not one that a serious government glosses over, as this will deal a big blow on the anti-corruption war.†The ex-minister, therefore, asked Buhari to hasten the probe of the NNPC.
Buhari seems unaware that the international community is no longer fooled by his skewed war against corruption. Our President and his legion of sycophants need to listen to Matthew Page, former United States intelligence expert on Nigeria, who remarked that “Buhari came with the promise to fight corruption and appoint incorruptible people into his government but that the anti-graft war “has been significant but selectiveâ€.
Page, who was reacting to Baru’s scandal, said the honeymoon between Buhari and the international community had ended.
The American said: “The honeymoon for Buhari with the international community is over; I’d argue it is over with many Nigerians as well. That honeymoon period lapsed for Obasanjo and believe it or not, there was quite a lot of honeymoon period for Jonathan in the international community that again ended at some point.
“People are not ignorant or blind to things they see going on, despite excuses that are being made. Buhari’s approach when he came into government was to say the system was poorly led by corrupt people. But the problem is not a matter of leadership; the problem is that the system is flawed and needs reform. I am not saying revolutionary reforms that can happen at a breakneck speed but definite reforms and the NNPC is a fantastic example.
“There are people in the ruling party, in government, sitting governors, there are plenty of people in the previous dispensation who reinvented themselves and are now in government and feel like by joining the government, the winning team, they have inoculated themselves against that type of scrutiny.â€
The submission of this American is food for thought for all Nigerians this morning.
What Happened to Ibrahim Lamorde’s Arrest Warrant?
Ibrahim Lamorde, the immediate past Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission declared wanted by the Senate last year, is back in the country and frolicking too. Lamorde ran abroad to avoid appearing before the Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions to respond to frightening allegations of corruption against him. I am surprised that nobody is talking about the case against him again. A confident Lamorde recently organised a wedding for his daughter in Abuja, with top Nigerians in attendance. Faces at the wedding party revealed that a large number of active politicians during Lamorde’s phony anti-corruption war years are indeed his friends. Many of them were on ground to clink glasses with the former anti-corruption agency boss. The list included former governor of Kogi State, Ibrahim Idris; former deputy President of the Senate, Ibrahim Mantu; Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal of Sokoto State; former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Ghali Na’aba; Senator Andy Ubah and Senator Godswill Akpabio.
Well, it seems the Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions is still unaware that Lamorde is back in the country. Perhaps, the pictures from the wedding will wake the committee from its slumber. Last year, it issued the warrant of arrest on Lamorde for refusing to appear before it. The 11-man committee investigated allegations of financial crimes and corruption brought against the former EFCC boss by Dr. George Uboh, a human rights activist. Chairman of the investigative Committee, Samuel Anyanwu admitted that the petition against Lamorde was weighty.
Senator Anyanwu reeled out Uboh’s allegations against Lamorde to include: That EFCC operates accounts in banks to warehouse recovered funds which do not reflect in EFCC’s audited account; that the EFCC doctors and manipulates bank accounts to conceal diversion of funds; that the EFCC releases recovered funds to unidentified persons and EFCC officials; that EFCC moves fund from its recovery accounts to EFCC operations account from where it diverts same; that over 95 per cent of EFCC recoveries in foreign currencies, other than those from multi-national companies, had been diverted; that EFCC trades with recovered funds through bank deposits and placements; that EFCC colludes with real estate companies in order to grossly under value seized assets before they are sold to their cronies; that EFCC has not accounted for offshore recoveries and that over half of the assets seized from suspects were not reflected in EFCC exhibit records.
These are indeed hefty allegations. Now that Lamorde is back in the country, he must account for his EFCC years. I hope the Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions will take urgent steps to apprehend him.
My Takeaway from Jim Yong Kim’s Remarks on Nigeria
Remarks by World Bank Group’s President, Jim Yong Kim, that President Buhari specifically requested the bank to shift its focus to northern Nigeria has unfortunately diverted attention from more pertinent issues raised about Nigeria’s development challenges by Kim. The World Bank President, who spoke during a press conference at the 2017 Annual Meetings of the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund in Washington D.C., raised the alarm that failure by successive government in Nigeria to invest in human capital was largely responsible for its current membership of the inglorious club of under-developed countries.
Kim also challenged the Nigerian government to encourage small and medium enterprise in order to jig the economy. This is the wakeup call lost to the political issue of “focusing on the North.†Kim remarked: “The conversation we need to have with Nigeria, I think, is in many ways, related to the theme that I brought to the table just this past week, which is to investment in human capital. The percentage of GDP that Nigeria spends on healthcare is less than one per cent. Nigeria has to think ahead by investing in its people; investing in the things that will allow Nigeria to be a thriving, rapidly growing economy in the future. This is what the country has to focus on right now. It has to think about the sources of growth in the future in what will surely be a more digitalized economy.
“And this is true for most of Africa. If you look at the numbers in terms of how successfully African countries had invested in their human beings versus other regions, there is a real issue. So, over this next year, not only in Nigeria but in all of Africa, we’re going to focus on accelerating investments in human capital i.e. investments in health, education, social protection, so that Africa can prepare itself for the next phase in economic development.
“One of the real questions that we all have is our traditional notions of economic growth which are agriculture, to light industry to heavy industry. How many countries in Africa will actually experience that, and we need to really think about another kind of path to economic growth that’s very focused on a small to medium enterprise as an entrepreneurship as they have in other parts of the world. I think we still don’t know that. But the one thing we know is that better health outcomes, better education outcomes will be critical no matter what the global economy looks like.
“We’re hoping that this project can show heads of state and finance ministers how long-term investments in their people can help grow economies and it can help create the political space for leaders to make these critical investments.â€
In the real sense of it, Kim did not tell us anything new. The World Bank President was simply trying to direct successive clueless Nigerian government to the path of development. The truth that must be told is that consecutive governments at all levels in Nigeria have failed to adequately invest in human capital, particularly health, education, infrastructure and social protection. Health and education institutions across the nation are in shambles. Public schools have now been abandoned to the extremely poor in our society. In fact, in some states, classes are conducted under trees. Even in supposedly rich states like Lagos, pupils in some public schools sit on bare floor. Our inner roads are also in a mess across the nation.
We must learn from China that has been able to lift over 800 million out of poverty in the last 27 years, with massive investment in health, education, infrastructure and SMEs. As stated by Kim, most of the progress made in going from 40 per cent of the world living in extreme poverty to less than 10 per cent happened in China. These are the real issues Nigerians should be discussing.
All is Not Well in Gwoza Town
Boko Haram’s attempt to take over Gwoza town in Borno State on October 10 is another clear example that the terrorists are still very much around and potent. They came in their hundreds and almost captured the town but for our gallant soldiers. The military needs to explain how a force they claimed had been degraded would stage such a daring attack with hundreds of fighters. Casualty figure is still a closely guided secret. Aid workers are no longer comfortable, and at a point last week, threatened to leave Gwoza. If the NGOs leave, there will be problem in terms of food, social and medical needs to the thousands of refugees struggling to pick up the pieces of their lives in Gwoza.
The truth that must be told is that Gwoza is still surrounded by the terrorists and the town is largely unsafe. Refugees are living in fear in this ruined town. It is so difficult to comprehend why the military is not taking proactive steps to end the siege on Gwoza. We must continue to put pressure on the military to do the needful in Gwoza and other towns and villages still being troubled by Boko Haram in Borno State. May Allah continue to protect our gallant soldiers.
