WEDNESDAY COLUMN BY USSIJU MEDANER
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I am elated to hear the news of the President’s prompt suspension of Dr. Betta Edu, the minister in charge of the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation after the viral media report of her alleged breach of financial procedure with evidence that may lead down the rabbit hole. It would have been an error to have for whatever reasons, allow her a day longer on that seat. This is by no means pronouncing the millennial Minister guilty as we await the outcome of the investigation instituted on the matter. We are in a democracy that bequeaths citizens the ethos of free speech and engagement on public affairs in order to arrive, hopefully, at useful insights and worthy resolutions for public adoption. However, once and again, the President has proven that he meant business in changing the Nigerian narrative on all fronts. As a staunch supporter of the President and an ardent believer in the Nigeria project, I will be somewhat blunt this week as I dissect the nation’s malfunctions especially with respect to leadership and governance. The President is indeed working, but it appears from all indications that much more needs to be done by the Administration, and more importantly as regards cooperation in all fronts and from his many lieutenants.
It is getting more difficult by the day to be a Nigerian at this material time; for instance, the economy bites so hard that it is no longer about financial survival but also of the almost lost guarantee of safety of lives of the citizens. This is no longer about the insecurity in the North East and the North Central alone, but of the general spread of unsafety of lives and properties of Nigerians. The increasing reports of kidnapping is now the currency on the burner. Even the last few weeks have been a hell across FCT; nowhere appears safe for ordinary citizens to live.
We had fought over the decades to end these menaces as they appeared and again and again, we have been defeated on all fronts as insecurity continues to soar as general survival capacity dims. And we would ask, what is it or what are they that we have not done right or rather, that we are not doing right? Investment in military power has been stepped up again and again in the last decade and yet, the military remains unable to satisfactorily arrest the insurgency and banditry that have overwhelmingly consumed the entire Northern states of the country. And now, it is clear as the day that we need more than military readiness to win this war against the soul of Nigeria.
It is apparent that until we address the clearly correlated relationship between economic disorganisation – the massive and deepening poverty ravaging the population – in the country and the worsening insecurity across the nation, we are not going to make any meaningful progress on the path of the efforts to make Nigeria and Nigerians safe. Secondly, and overtly correlated to the worrisome insecurity in the country is the growing figure of inequalities among the citizens. Here, we are talking about financial inequalities; we are talking about a country where, apparently, less than 3 percent of the population, consisting largely of politicians, holds and controls over 90 percent of the wealth of the nation.
From many authoritative research conducted globally, poverty, crime and insecurity are often correlated. But, it is also well recognised that criminality and insecurity are not only found amidst poverty, but also driven by the menace of inequalities. When both income and wealth inequalities are deepened by gross poverty, and culminated into breakdowns of social norms and values, gross unemployment, limited access to complete education, healthcare facilities, breakdown of family structures and limited or no opportunities and exclusion from national formal economy, the only expected outcome would be commensurate criminality and the consequent insecurity.
Nigeria will definitely continue to have to deal with these increasing menaces of crimes and insecurity until we return to the table to address the root causes of the menaces. In our peculiar scenario, law enforcement alone would be insufficient to fight crime and insecurity enveloping the nation, as the past decades have shown, but rather, firstly, new, proactive, non-military measures that address the social, economic and societal drivers of crimes and insecurity in Nigeria are prime for consideration and executions.
So, where do we start from? Recognising corruption as the first point of call; recognising that political parasitism and its induced political corruption is at the centre of everything that is not working well in the country. Until, we agree that corruption in the political space must be dealt with first before anything else can work with us as a nation and a people.
According to Wikipedia, Nigeria was estimated to have lost over $400 billion to corruption since its independence. In 2019, The Economist magazine reported that an estimated $600bn is believed to have been stolen from Nigeria since its Independence in 1960. In 2021, the Nigerian government recovered over $700 million (about N288 billion) stolen funds stashed in foreign countries in the past four years according to the former Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami during President Muhammadu Buhari administration.
Yet, all these, as alarming as they are, are but just icing on the cake, when the real extent of corruption in the country is exposed. The nation’s oil and gas industry went under because we allowed corruption to take over. Corruption forced the nation’s refineries to pack up, and still continued to suck the commonwealth through turnaround maintenance from 1999 till date. We actually engaged in non stop turnaround maintenance for 24 years without the refineries refining a barrel of crude for the public.
Also, we continue to make huge budgets for the development of the nation’s power development, yet, between 1999 and 2024, we have only added inconsequential megawatts of electricity to the national grid and have not been able to visibly increase the national distribution capacity. We need to ask ourselves, what have we been using the allocated capital for, or rather, where have they been ending?
Our education is also as ineffective as it can be; as the institution continues to turn out mostly unemployable graduates in thousands every other calendar year and the relatively few truly educated ones that come out often choose to ‘japa,’ a term that is now globally known as escaping to a foreign country for a better life. The nation is so deprived of manufacturing capacity that real industries are so few and countable at a tip of the finger; hence no job waiting anywhere for the non-prepared graduates. So, our streets are overwhelmingly filled with jobless youths.
This is a perennial problem for Nigeria; and some would say it is since independence. At one point, we thought respite was coming for the country. The Muhammadu Buhari government came in with promises to halt corruption in the country, and we began to see some public officers tried and convicted for crimes of corruption against the country, and then suddenly, the tempo died off. One after the other, convicted former governors were given presidential pardon by the same government, and others were returning to courts to overturn their convictions and reclaim their confisticated properties and other articles of wealth. As the popular parlance goes, corruption fought back and won. We have surely returned to our accepted status quo at the end of the immediate past government.
The current Administration came with so many promises for Nigerians. So much hope, themed Renewed Hope. While we see a president striving hard to carry everyone along, including the opposition, it now appears his albatross is that some of his lieutenants, his appointees are stealth corrupt elements hell bent on maintaining the status quo as far as what the media is churning out about them. Regardless of the good intentions of the President, some appointed public officials have proven that all they care about are the wealth they can accumulate while in office. Only in the last weeks, the country has recorded two huge cases of massive corruption, only in one ministry. While we were still grasping with the uncovered total sum of N37,170,855,753.44 allegedly laundered in the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation under former minister Sadiya Umar-Farouk, the revelation of the transferring of public fund to the tune of N585.2 million at the instance of the current minister of the same ministry into private accounts of some officials in her ministry. What explanation could be tenable to explain the transfer of public money first into some private accounts before disbursement for the actual purposes? We are not talking about a rural or a community group or organisation but a federal agency. Definitely none. Chapter 7 of the Nigeria Federal Government Financial Regulation Act was clear on this issue; it says “Personal money shall in no circumstances be paid into a government bank account, nor shall any public money be paid into a private account. An official who pays public money into a private account is deemed to have done so with fraudulent intentions,” yet we are seeing some of the aides to the minister justifying reasons why the transfer was made.
Even before the alleged financial breach by the minister which is still trending, just last week, another appointee of the President, the National Coordinator of the N-power Scheme, N-SIP was sacked for fraudulently cornering 44 billion naira earmarked to be shared for some members of the public before the end of 2023 which we all know how tough it was for the masses. Only three appointees, and we are already talking of billions. The allegations against Emefiele is a case on its own, yet, is still one of very many cases of individuals in possession of stolen national wealth.
The President must not be satisfied with suspending these elements who by their actions have shown they wanted to damage the image of the Administration and worsen Nigeria’s problems, in fact, they have already; and they must be made examples of what it means to steal from the commonwealth of Nigeria and face the consequences if and only they are found guilty. Another angle worth mentioning here is the potential case of trading favours among the ministers which seems to be revealed in the embattled minister’s case. Apparently a serving minister’s wife being a director of a company awarded a contract by her husband’s colleague, a minister cannot be called any other name but corruption or malfeasance or both. It will however be interesting to see whether or not the said company has been declared among the companies and assets of the minister and his family, particularly his wife, with the Code of Conduct Bureau. For the company to be declared or not and then be awarded such a contract under the same government without self-reporting by the wife or the minister is a potential financial breach; and for the awarding ministry to carry out such approval knowing well such implication as conflict of interest, is also a financial breach. And if that is the case, what the minister may not know is that he is caught in a zugzwang.
It cannot be overemphasised that the Nigerian augean stable must be cleansed without further delay. This, Mr. President, must and needs to do, for Nigeria and Nigerians. That would begin the process of enshrining a tight fiscal, economic and ethical framework devoid of corruption for the country.
Lastly, should we be talking of stopping the impoverished and deprived citizens who take the inglorious route of crime and criminality to escape the consequences of the acts of politicians who do not care as they steal off all our commonwealth, or should we be talking of stopping amor politicians from finally crashing the country economy, as the pathway to ending the country biting and non-ending insecurities. This is a million dollar question for all who cares to answer.
God Bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
