By Zik Gbemre
With reports that the Federal Government is set to use the latest recovered loot from the Sani Abacha administration to fund three major infrastructure projects, we believe it is a welcome development that at least this time around, Nigerians were told exactly what the Government wants to do with a recovered loot. However, we also believe that the Nigerian public deserve to know what exactly have the Federal Government of Nigeria used other recovered loots to do? What have they used all the recovered loots before now for, in improving the living standard of Nigerians and making life a lot bearable for the general masses?
As regard the latest Abacha loot, the Federal Government had signed an agreement with the United States of America and the Island of Jersey to repatriate the sum of $318,460,329, which was looted by General Abacha during his military regime in the 1990s. The funds, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman, Ferdinand Nwonye, will be used to fund, the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, the Abuja – Kano Expressway and the Second Niger Bridge and will be supervised by the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA). While we appreciate the fact that these are sensitive and viable projects, our only concern here is the issue of accountability and transparency in the judicious use of the said funds, during the implementation of the stated projects. It is one thing to vote/allocate funds to execute certain projects in Nigeria, but it is another thing entirely for such funds to be used judiciously and every dime accounted for by the Contractors, and relevant monitoring authorities of the Government concerned. The authorities of the NSIA, must ensure that Government officials, including their members, do not use fronts to allocate for themselves these projects contracts, or misappropriate the funds into private pockets.
That being said, it is not enough to come out every now and then to tell Nigerians that so-so number of billions and trillions of amounts have been recovered from proceeds of corruption in high places. What Nigerians are more interested in is “ACCOUNTABILITY” – the utilization of all the recovered money to improve the existing deplorable basic infrastructure across the country, and better the economy for the citizenry. The Nigerian masses need to see exactly what and what the recovered monies was/and is being used for.
For instance, some time ago, the Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC), Prof. Itse Sagay, had revealed that about N1 trillion has been recovered from proceeds of corruption perpetrated by Nigerians in the country. Then some months back, the Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Magu, revealed that he had set a new record in asset recovery and conviction of corrupt elements in the country in the last three years of his outing, as he announced that the EFCC under his watch recovered N794 billion, $261 million (about N77.8 billion), £1.1 million and 407 mansions from looters. And just this week, the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMI), Lagos Command of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) intercepted $8.6 million at the airport, and the said money was recovered while preparations were being made to load the money into a waiting aircraft. The NCS authorities noted that the vehicle from which the money was about being loaded into the aircraft belongs to the Nigerian Aviation Handling Company.
These and many more are the few examples of the enormous amounts of money being recovered under this administration, and in a country where poverty and hardship is still making life very miserable for the general citizenry. So, as regard the recovered loots, all well and good. But the fact still remains that Nigerians have no iota of idea of what the Federal Government has been using all that recovered loot to do, in improving the living standards of Nigerians. Though, Prof. Sagay, had hinted at that time that the said N1trillion recovered funds (which did not include funds recovered from outside Nigeria) are being plunged back into the national budget every year. The funds, he said, have been used to fund the activities of the Social Investment Programmes. That to us, is a very vague and general statement that does not really give details of exactly what, and how the said recovered loots was/ and is being utilized.
More so, one would have expected the Federal Government to focus more on investing heavily on the provision of needed infrastructure in the country with all the said recovered loots. The so-called Social Investments Programmes and the elephant-recurrent expenditure in the nation’s annual budgets, are obvious channels that encourage more pilfering and waste of the said re-channeled recovered loots from corruption proceeds. At the end of the day, there will not be any significant difference in the living standards of the majority of Nigerians, despite whatever amounts of recovered loots and ploughed back into the system. Hence, the need for the Federal Government of Nigeria to focus more on expending the said recovered loots on provision of basic infrastructure (capital projects) that are seriously begging for urgent attention across the country.
For quite some time now, most of the Federal Roads across the country are in bad shape. For example, the Federal road railway crossing at the Udu road spot, in Udu LGA, Delta State, is very bad; the Federal Warri-Sapele-Benin road is currently in a very terrible state. No new infrastructure has been built in the last couple of months/years. The power supply in the country has gone from bad to worse, especially since this administration came on board. With all of this, how on earth is this administration expecting to end poverty and address the myriads of problems daily plaguing Nigerians on the streets?
It is only heavy investment in infrastructure that will make this administration, and the ones coming after it, to change the current narrative of Nigeria being a country that is “consumption-driven rather than being productive-driven.” No country’s economy can attain needed height when it is GENERATOR-DRIVEN. No country can develop without having the basic infrastructure for such economic growth to take place. While other countries are daily investing heavily on infrastructure, the Nigerian Government at all levels are busy spending more funds, including recovered loots from corruption proceeds, on administration/governance. Name all the places today that Nigerians and other foreigners like trooping into; Dubai, London, New York, Paris, Singapore, etc., they are all developed because they started with having the required infrastructural foundation on ground, and every other thing/development took shape on that foundation. That is exactly what we need in Nigeria.
Zik Gbemre.
National Coordinator
Niger Delta Peace Coalition (NDPC)
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