NBET N7.6bn Saga: Separating Fact from Fiction

By Abdullahi Umar

In every realm of human endeavour, especially governance, trust is the name of the coin because it presupposes that the people surrender or entrust their mandate in a government. And, like has been tested throughout ages, ‘trust is a burden’.

Therefore, it is understandable when media houses and journalists hold governments and their agencies accountable through investigative reports and other forms of exposure. It is important, however, to ensure the authenticity of the documentary evidence that forms the basis for news reports as this has impact on the accuracy of reporting.

A report recently appeared on “TheCable”, an online media platform, titled: “Revealed: NBET Budgets N7.6bn for ‘Senate’ – but can’t settle GenCos’ invoices”, which elicited a lot of interest, possibly on account of the headline. Looking at the meat of this story, the report stated that the NBET’s 2021 Budget contained the sum of N7.62billion with the heading “Senate 5%”.

My first observation when I looked at the copy of the budget enclosed in the report was that the “Senate 5%” budget line did not have a Code to it. I was puzzled by this, and realized that something must be amiss. For those familiar with Nigeria’s budget matters, every budget item has a code number, which is used for tracking the budgetary expenditure tied to the code. My review of the Appropriation Act 2021 – the law signed by the President confirmed my suspicion – that no such line item exists in NBET’s budget. The Appropriation Act is a widely available public document, also obtainable at the National Assembly and the Budget Office of the Federation. Two authenticating signatures are signed across each page of the Appropriation Act. It is important to buttress that every budget passed by the National Assembly and signed by Mr. President becomes a law of the country, and the budget law has been in existence since January 2021 following Presidential assent. The report of “Senate 5%” in NBET’s budget is therefore completely inaccurate.

Media houses are often inundated with stories for publication, and in the social media era, once something enters the public space, it quickly spreads like wild fire across the blogosphere. Where the information proves incorrect, it becomes challenging to retract or clarify and much damage may have been done already by the time this is done. TheCable clearly relied on a wrong / fake version of the Budget, perhaps obtained from the internet, to run their story, with resulting vilification of the agency involved. This may have been inadvertent on their part.

It is incumbent on media houses, especially editors, to ensure that stories are properly vetted, and where public documents are involved, to use authentic versions of such documents to build their stories.

Abdullahi Umar, a power sector analyst, is the Managing Director/CEO, Target Energy Ltd – a power sector consultancy services company.