A civic organisation focused on the Nigerian budget and public data, BudgIT, has thrown its weight behind suspended Senator Abdul Ningi on a N3.7 trillion gap in the 2024 budget presented to the National Assembly.

 The Director and co-founder of BudgIT, Seun Onigbinde, made this known during an interview with Channels Television on Wednesday, stressing that Ningi was right if he posited that there was no detailed allocation for N3.7 trillion in the 2024 budget. 

Ningi, representing Bauchi Central senatorial district was suspended on Tuesday by the Senate, over the allegations that two versions of the 2024 budget were passed at the National Assembly. The senator said he stood by his story and also said there was nowhere he said two versions of the budget were being implemented.

The senator from Bauchi, who was also the Chairman of the Northern Senators Forum (NSF), alleged that the budget was padded by N3.7 trillion and that the North has been neglected under the administration of President Bola Tinubu. On the floor of the Senate, the Chairman Senate Committee on Appropriation, Senator Olamilekan Adeola (APC, Ogun West) on Tuesday moved a motion on breach of privilege and after heated debate by senators, Ningi was suspended for three months.

 ‘Ningi was right’

But reacting yesterday, the BudgIT Director, Onigbinde, stressed that Ningi was right for positing that there was no detailed allocation for N3.7 trillion in the 2024 budget.

 Onigbinde said the allocations of the National Assembly, National Judicial Council (NJC), Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) and others do not carry a detailed breakdown. 

He added that the people have the right to know how the funds earmarked for the aforementioned agencies were being spent.

“Around N2 trillion of the budget presented by the president is the government-owned enterprises budget. So, if Senator Ningi says there is a N25 trillion budget, yes, that is the MDA’s budget. It’s different from the government-owned enterprises budget which was now added. 

“It is factual that he said that, but it doesn’t mean that we are running two concurrent budgets. There is a different conversation that those projects should be detailed. TETFUND should not just get an allocation. 

“What are you spending the money on? INEC is collecting a huge chunk of funds but there are no public details about what the funds are used for, the same thing with NJC, even the National Assembly. “In the current budget, the National Assembly gave a very broad summary of its allocations but there are no detailed allocations on a granular level that everybody can interrogate.

 “These are transparency issues and if you put all these together, that is around N3.5 trillion to N3.7 trillion. So, if that is what he (Ningi) wants to interrogate, there are components of the budget where there is no breakdown. That is very factual. 

“But the National Assembly needs to push back. We need a breakdown. What is NJC spending money on? We give more money to the NJC and say take it arbitrarily. What are they spending that money on? There should be a detailed breakdown to the public. On that point, Senator Ningi is right but to look as if we are running parallel budgets, that is not right.” He said. Contacted by Daily Trust yesterday to shed more light on their finding, Onigbinde said “Ningi’s allegation of budget padding was partly true. “From my fact-checking of Ningi’s statement, we found some parts to be untrue, and we found some parts to be true.

“The only part that we found to be true is that some of the items that were statutory transfers and Government Owned Enterprises (GOEs) do not have a breakdown. “The bigger picture here is about insertion into the budget. Around 7,474 projects worth N2.2 trillion were added to the budget. I think that’s where the bigger problem is.”

But efforts to get the Senate spokesman, Yemi Adaramodu, to comment on the latest development proved abortive, as he neither answered his phone calls nor responded to an SMS sent to him. Senator Adaramodu had explained on Tuesday that the N3.7 trillion alleged to have not been traceable to any project or location was for agencies of government “on first line charge.”

 The Senate Spokesman said, “They include the Public Complaints Commission, INEC, UBEC, TETFUND, and many others. So, the money was not padded. They are allocations of agencies of government that have to take first line charge.”

However, Dataphyte, a research and data analytics organisation, said there was no evidence of padding in the 2024 budget. 

 “What we can confirm is that the 2024 Appropriation Act approved an aggregate expenditure of 28.78 trillion naira, and the figures add up,” Mr Oluseyi Olufemi, the Insight Lead, Dataphyte, told Daily Trust yesterday.

We stand by Ningi – Bauchi gov 

Meanwhile, Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State has declared that the state government is behind Senator Ningi.

 Speaking during the state’s cabinet meeting at the Government House in Bauchi yesterday, Mohammed said, “Yesterday (Tuesday), I was very sad the Senate suspended one of our best from Bauchi for saying the truth, for standing up to be the beacon of the truth. “Equally I don’t know what we will do but we will discuss privately to see what we can do to support him because I support whatever he is doing and that is our best position especially if what he is saying is the truth.” The governor, however, called on all relevant authorities to thoroughly investigate the matter rather than suspending the senator.

PDP asks Akpabio to step aside

 The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has asked Senate President Godswill Akpabio to immediately step aside and allow an independent investigation into the “allegation that a staggering N3.7 trillion was discreetly inserted into the 2024 budget for alleged non-existent projects.”

 PDP also demanded that Senator Akpabio immediately report to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over the pending case of “alleged looting of N108 billion belonging to the people of Akwa Ibom State under his watch as governor”.

Debo Ologunagba, National Publicity Secretary of the party, in a statement, said the Senate president should also speak to Nigerians on the “reported N86 billion contract scam in the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) during his tenure as the minister of Niger Delta Affairs.”

Ologunagba said, “We ask, why the APC leadership in the Senate not referred the matter to the appropriate Senate standing committee for an open investigation in line with the extant rules of the Senate? What is the APC Senate leadership afraid of and what is it hiding from Nigerians?

 “It is even more absurd that instead of recusing himself, the Senate president sat as a judge in the matter; a situation that can bring the institution of the Senate to further public disrepute.”

Suspension didn’t address budget padding allegation – Obi 

The presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in last year’s election, Mr Peter Obi has said that the suspension of Senator Abdul Ningi by the Senate has not addressed vital issues emanating from his allegation of the 2024 budget padding. Obi, in a post on his X handle yesterday, asked senators to disclose to Nigerians the exact amounts allocated to them for constituency projects for appropriate monitoring of implementation by the public. “And if indeed the report from BudgIT is true, that there is about N3.7trn without any detailed project allocations, I strongly urge the Senate to do more detailed work of channelling these funds into the critical areas of development – education, health and pulling people out of poverty, which will in turn, minimise the criminality we are facing today.”

Ningi’s suspension attack on freedom of expression – CISLAC 

The Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC)/Transparency International in Nigeria (TI-Nigeria) also queried the “undemocratic action and questionable decision by the leadership of the Senate to suspend Ningi over the 2024 budget padding controversy.”

The Executive Director of CISLAC/TI-Nigeria, Auwal Musa Rafsanjani, said on Wednesday in Abuja that it is unacceptable that the suspension was initiated against Ningi for expressing his constitutionally guaranteed concerns and observations on the 2024 budget at this critical moment when the nation is deeply soaked in socio-economic and financial crisis. 

He said that the unjust suspension of a senator who represents an entire senatorial district is similar to a public demonstration of an unguarded culture of silencing, insensitivity, disrespect and marginalisation of the people and dictatorship. Also, Comrade Ibrahim M. Zikirullahi, Executive Director, Resource Centre for Human Rights and Civic Education (CHRICED), demanded for forensic audit of allocation for constituency projects. He also demanded Senator Abdul Ningi’s immediate reinstatement.

“The Senate leadership made major attempts to undercut Senator Ningi’s charges and swiftly suspended him without conducting a thorough inquiry to check the veracity of his claims. He commended Senators Ningi and Jarigbe for their courage in speaking out against corruption and theft of public resources in the Nigerian Senate.

“Furthermore, we’ve discovered that members in both the Senate and the House of Representatives have developed new methods to sneak fake projects into the budget, making it impossible to monitor.

“This has occurred since the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) collaborated with selected Civil Society Organizations, including CHRICED, to monitor constituency projects across the country, exposing the fraudulent practices of several federal and state legislators.

“One such strategy adopted by them is to insert useless and frivolous empowerment initiatives that are virtually hard to track down and do not fulfil the constituents’ concerns. We saw in the 2024 budget that a lot of projects with billions of Naira earmarked to them had no locations or specifics,” he said. 

 [DailyTrust]

The journey to Kuriga in southern Kaduna, North-west Nigeria, did not start with the kidnap of 287 students last week. In the early 1990s a neighbouring town, Zango Kataf, was the boiling point. 

About a decade later, the beast of sectarian violence, which had reared its head in Kaduna, surfaced several hundreds of miles away in two major places that have become the epicentres of insurgency: Borno and Yobe States, both in the North-east.

Even though misery travelled southwards aided by Mohammed Yusuf, the itinerant extremist Muslim preacher in Yobe whose activities heightened the rise of extremism in the early 2000s, Yusuf did not entirely pave the way for the mass kidnap in Kuriga last week. 

The incompetence of the security services mixed with rampant poverty in parts of the North and the opportunism of the elite in the region helped in no small way to recruit the bands of misguided and rogue elements that have become a national plague.

That band, mixed with insurgents drifting southward from the Sahel, has been showing up as banditry in some areas, cattle rustling in other areas, and violent extremism elsewhere. In the process, hundreds have been killed, while Borno and Yobe have become Africa’s largest camps of internally displaced persons.

Kidnapping is the latest franchise. It shocked the world when over 200 girls were kidnapped from their school in Chibok and 58 boys killed inside their school dormitory in Buni Yadi, Yobe State. But since then, Amnesty International has documented 13 abductions in Nigerian schools. 

Within 10 days last week, over 500 persons, mostly children, were taken hostage in different states and in separate attacks on IDP camps and schools. 

Days after 200 persons were kidnapped from an IDP camp in Borno State, a school in Kaduna State was the next hunting ground. Two-hundred and eighty-seven students and pupils, with some staff, from the Local Government Education Authority (LGEA) Primary School, Kuriga in Chikun Local Government Area of Kaduna State were kidnapped during the school’s morning assembly. 

Politicians, who shed crocodile tears for a living, visit crime scenes like Kuriga twice in their lifetime. They visit unfailingly during election campaigns and then grudgingly – more for the camera – at a time of grief, like this. Kaduna State Governor, Uba Sani, for example, was in Kuriga on Thursday, shortly after the students were kidnapped. 

It was not a normal visit, like you would visit folks in your neigbourhood who had just suffered a loss. Kuriga or Birnin Gwari, another dangerous neighbouring town, has not been a normal place for years. Four years ago, for example, an NGO, WANEP, reported that 140 persons were abducted and 84 killed by bandits in Birnin Gwari. 

Governor Sani’s visit

Eyewitnesses said on his visit to Kuriga, Governor Sani was prepared as if he was going to a warfront. Only one print journalist and a few others from broadcast stations, chosen by the Government House, were embedded in the governor’s convoy on that trip. Which means with telecommunications cut off, reports from there are second- third- or perhaps, fourth-hand accounts.

Residents of Chikun Local Government, with an estimated population of 550,000, have tried to get used to living under terror. Left largely on their own without government or security, they have accepted the authority of bandits and terrorists. These criminal gangs extort money from residents from N70,000 to N100,000 to have access to their farms. Those in Kidandan, Galadimawa Kerawa, Sabon Layi, Sabon Birni and Ruma whose names may not show on your Google map, are also affected.

Yet, these folks might even consider themselves lucky, if luck means paying through your nose to reach your farm. According to news reports, those in other local governments such as Igabi and Giwa, have abandoned their farms to terrorists. Other communities in Kaduna currently under siege are Kaura, Kajuru, and Zango Kataf.

Toll gates of Kuriga

Apart from tolling the farms for cash, illegal miners, using small fry, have also deployed their billing machines. They squeeze farm owners to give up their lands for peanuts, which they then mine for minerals. It’s a criminal enterprise that has been on for years. Like most criminal gangs, the ones in Kuriga have developed their own codes, fees, levies and commissions. 

The decision of these syndicates to turn from extorting farmers and stripping their lands of mineral deposits to kidnapping students for ransom is an indication that kidnapping is paying more. That’s not a surprise. The Africa Report quoted SBM Intelligence that gunmen kidnapped at least 3,620 people across Nigeria between July 2022 and June 2023, with a ransom demand totalling over N5billion. 

What is the government doing about it? And I’m not talking about the state alone; I’m also talking about politicians in Kaduna and Abuja elected to represent these communities. Where, for example, is Jesse David, who represents this distressed community in the State House of Assembly? 

And where is Shehu Balarabe, who represents Birnin Gwari/Gwari Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives? How did they find their way to their constituency during the election campaign but have lost their way back when their people need them most?

Where is the Federal Government, which controls the army, the air force, the police and the state services? How are kidnappers or bandits or terrorists able to mobilise and seize 287 students and teachers from their school in daylight in Kuriga, about 20 minutes’ drive from Birnin Gwari that is supposed to have a military base? 

Imagine, for a moment, the logistics involved in moving 287 persons, most of them children. From infographics published by LEADERSHIP the day after, it would take 144 motorcycles or 57 cars or 21 buses or five 4.8 Embraer-145 planes, to move that number of people. 

Yet, for the umpteenth time since 2014, children were kidnapped in their numbers by bandits who still managed to plan, coordinate and execute this evil in an area supposedly cut-off from communications. How, for Christ’s sake, did that happen?

A trillion naira industry?

Just as shocking for me has been the near total absence of outrage outside Kuriga. It’s this kind of eye-rolling, not-our-business kind of attitude that has brought us where we are: where what shocked the world 10 years ago in Chibok even spawning demonstrations and hashtags, appears incapable of moving the dial today, in spite of its scale and audacity.

Apart the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the Central African Republic (CAR), and South Sudan, where the savagery of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), led to 100,000 deaths, and the abductions of 60,000 to 100,000 children and the displacement of millions, only few countries have witnessed the scale of criminality that Nigeria has witnessed in what is supposed to be peace time.    

It reminds me of Mexico in 2014. That year, also the year of the Chibok Girls, 43 students were kidnapped by a drug cartel and years of agonising search yielded no clues. Until last year, when long after the students had been murdered, investigations revealed that government officials were employees of the cartel. 

According to the New York Times, text messages exchanged between the cartel and government officials even found that first responders on the crime scene were on the cartel’s payroll! Which partly explains why it took so long to unravel the crime.

It’s heart-wrenching to think that even though we’re told that Kuriga and other affected parts have been cut off from communications, we still hear of the criminals asking for ransom and issuing threats! 

It may be far-fetched to assume official complicity in Kuriga. It’s foolish, however, to think that kidnapping became a trillion-naira industry without support from outside the gangs. Until we thoroughly investigate the kidnappers’ support system and expose and punish the kingpins, we’re wasting time. 

Who knows where this is going to happen next?

Azu Ishiekwene is the Editor-In-Chief of LEADERSHIP. 

The Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), Mele Kyari, has said the firm recorded 9,000 infractions on oil pipelines in one year.

Kyari stated this yesterday when the House of Representatives Special Committee on Oil Theft visited the NNPCL headquarters in Abuja on oversight functions.

According to him, from 2022 till date, the NNPCL had deactivated 6,465 illegal refineries. It has also removed 4,876 of the 5,570 illegal connections to pipelines.

He added: “Some of the infractions we see are unbelievable. We are not able to deal with it. When you remove one connection, the next day in the same location, someone will replace it.

“It is obvious that crude oil theft is almost an end-to-end issue in Nigeria; it is very obvious that everyone is involved. In most of these locations, they are less than a 100 meters from the settlement. Some are even less than a 100 meters from the local government headquarters.”

Kyari said the key issue was insecurity, and that NNPCL moved to curtail pipeline vandalism by incorporating all security agencies into a single platform, including private security.

According to him, no country surrenders the protection of such critical assets, which are the source of income, to non-state actors.

Exactly one month to this day in 2014, Nigeria became the subject of international interest when 276 students of Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok, Borno State, were kidnapped by the terrorist group Boko Haram. The brazenness and the novelty of the Chibok incident turned many Nigerians into conspiracy theorists. In those days, the All Progressives Congress/Congress for Progressive Change was the so-called opposition, and they really dug a spear into former President Goodluck Jonathan’s side. Bola Tinubu was the leader of the APC. Then Borno governor, Kashim Shettima, could not devise enough ways to stitch up the Jonathan administration over Chibok.

Reading through the old media reports recently and seeing the allegations against the Jonathan administration by people like Tinubu (and even his wife) and Shettima, it is striking how much they politicised that unfortunate incident.

A decade after Chibok, Tinubu is president; Shettima is his vice, and another 300 or so school children plus their teachers have been kidnapped in Gada, Sokoto State, and Kurija in Kaduna State. In fact, over 400 Nigerians have been reportedly abducted within a week. I wonder if the Tinubus and Shettima think of the irony of fate that underlines these serial abductions. Everything they said about Jonathan and his inept handling of the Chibok abductions can now be said about them.

Speaking on the recent incident, the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Ajuri Ngelale, noted that some fifth-column elements were at work. Media reports quoted him saying, “Across the North, we understand that some of the sub-regional geopolitical forces that are currently at play are actively conspiring against the stability of Nigeria.” While I appreciate Ngelale’s candour—and in terms of self-comportment, he is head, shoulders, and even ankle above his classless predecessors who turned the management of the presidency into a bolekaja affair—his bag of tricks is pretty old.

Ten years after Chibok and with unabated kidnaps throughout the country, Ngelale is still stuck on the propagandist’s spiel of “out-of-power northern Nigeria wants to make the country ungovernable for the southern president.” Like the rest of the Nigerian political class, he too blames abstract forces for our national issues. Nigeria is a place where “unknown soldiers” kill and despoil in broad daylight. Snakes and monkeys eat money, “cabals and deities,” the “elites of the elites” with “deep pockets” rob the country of funds for fuel subsidies. Electricity is unstable because some “demons” constantly toy with its functions. The problems that beset the country always have no face, no name, and therefore inapprehensible. We have heard all these tall tales before. Ngelale needs a new game.

To be clear, the issue here is not that professional politicians took advantage of the Chibok abductions to make the Jonathan administration look bad. What they did is what politicians everywhere do: amplify every failing and misstep of your opponent. The APC that unseated the Peoples Democratic Power from power might be amoral, but their actions are still consistent with the character of high-stakes politics.

Anyway, as I said, the politicisation of the Chibok abduction is not how the chickens can be said to have come home to roost for the APC. What rankles is that a whole decade after Chibok, despite abductions having become a normative evil, our government still has not fashioned a better response to these sad incidents. While Jonathan’s shortcomings in responding to the Chibok kidnappings can be chalked down to the novelty of Chibok, Tinubu/Shettima has no excuse. Yet, what can their administration say they have done any better than Jonathan who did not see Chibok coming? Yes, the president ordered security agencies to find those children but every Nigerian by now knows the efficacy value of such “orders.”

And here is where the trouble lies: if the present administration has not demonstrated better insight into a situation that has now become predictable, what guarantee exists that there will not be more of these incidents? The kidnappers are part of Nigeria’s social and political culture, and their choice to make a resounding impact by serially invading three schools over a mere few days cannot be separated from their observations of how entirely chaotic and dysfunctional the Tinubu administration has been. A government that cannot get basic things together in everyday administrative management is one whose resolve will be tested. Unfortunately, the kidnaps are one of the relatively easiest ways to go head-to-head with an administration that does not yet quite know what governance means and still get heftily paid while at it.

And why are the police infantilising the courts?

Thursday last week, the Nigeria Police Force released a press statement on the Chioma Egodi vs. Eric Umeofia case. Since this column was published just hours before the police bombast, I am compelled to raise a few issues with the press release. First, I am curious to know if they ran that waffle of a statement by a lawyer (or anyone with even basic knowledge of the law) before putting it out. Or, was it just one man who cranked out his prejudices on an angry typewriter? If they had consulted before publishing, they would perhaps have been reliably informed that public investment in a case involving two Nigerians and the judicial system is not tantamount to a “manipulation of public sentiment.”

Second, the police claimed to be “deeply worried” that people are crowdfunding for the woman’s legal expenses, and that that might influence legal proceedings. If you are ever in doubt that the police have taken sides on this issue and are using the instruments of the state to run the errands of one man who happens to have a lot of power (aka money), that statement should convince you. Otherwise, why should the police care how the case is decided? Why is it their place to be “deeply worried” that the courts will be influenced by public investment in the issue when they are supposedly neutral arbiters?

People crowdfund their legal expenses all the time and anywhere in the world. When we ordinary members of the public give toward the legal expense of someone else, we signify our moral investment in the judicial process. The law allows us to hold such opinions, and the police cannot strip us of them. Saying that the courts will be moved to take a decision one way or another because of public opinion infantilises the court. They are in fact alleging that the judges base their judgment on extrajudicial means. If they believe the court is too fickle to decide this case rationally, why file the case with them in the first place? During the presidential election tribunal, the judges told us they are unmoved by social media commentary, so why are the police panicking?

As Nigerians under a democratic rule that guarantees freedom of thought/conscience, we fully reserve the right to comment on an issue of collective interest and even donate our money toward it. Why should it bother the police that what Egodi’s supporters are doing will influence the court any more than Umeofia’s supporters? Notice that the police press statement was silent about the latter’s social media antics.

I said it last week and I will say it again: the police are playing a villainous role in this Egodi vs Umeofia case. If they truly believed their own stated claims that this case is about “upholding the rule of law,” then they should stand down. Their aggression toward Egodi and her family suggests they have an extrajudicial interest in this case. If truly there is a democracy in Nigeria, then we should have certain rights. And if those rights will be abridged because one man somewhere cannot take criticism, let it be on record that the courts-not the police-took that injurious decision.

Of all our past leaders, Muhammadu Buhari, by his anti-imperialist and pro-Nigerian policies during his short stay in power between 1984 and 1985 was perhaps the most pro-Nigerian.  The author of ‘Nigerians have no other place they can call their own’ was regarded as an honourable man ‘who cannot be unfair’ (Maitama Sule). The only ware Buhari had to sell in the run up to the 2015 election was his righteousness which he carried around like Saint Christopher’s badge of honour.

Buhari had played his politics well by rejecting IMF loan to prevent the destruction of our budding industries with the flooding of our market with foreign manufactured goods and challenging Nigerians to produce their own wheat or starve.  Nigerians produced not only what they would eat but more than enough wheat that storage facilities became a challenge.  Within the period, our refineries worked with Nigerian exporting refined petroleum products to earn foreign exchange while domestic consumption of PMS was secured through swapping of crude oil with Brazil.

It was widely believed that Babangida’s palace coup was masterminded by CIA in response to Buhari’s anti-imperialist crusade. This was to earn him the sympathy of Yoruba voters in 2015 despite jailing their leaders for between 100-300 years for taxing contractors to raise money to build universities in Edo, Ondo, Ogun and Lagos while treating Shagari who presided over massive corruption that led to the collapse of the economy and his NPN/NPP governors that took foreign loans to marry new wives and set up private banks with kid gloves.

Unfortunately, Buhari, by his mishandling of our crisis of nation-building during his two-term presidency marred by incompetence, cronyism and delegation by abdication, deprived himself of an opportunity to become a statesman.

His first test of integrity after acquiring power was his apparent sympathy for herdsmen terrorists rated by Global Terrorism Index as the fourth deadliest terrorist group in the world, coming after Boko Haram, ISIS and Al-Shabab. As if to confirm the fears of those who alleged his government had been hijacked by ethnic irredentists even before its inauguration, Alhaji Sale Bayeri issued a threat claiming that “the Boko Haram insurgency would be a child’s play if herdsmen and farmers’ conflicts are not resolved in a way that is acceptable to all sides”, while pointing out that what would appease the rampaging herdsmen was contained in a 70-page letter he had sent to President Buhari before his inauguration. Their demand was for an unhindered grazing access in areas he identified as ‘trouble spots’ spread across 75 local government areas across 21 states including “Oye Local Government in the northern part of Ekiti, Shaki in Oyo State, Akwa-Ibom, Cross River, Rivers, Delta, Edo, Bauchi, Gombe, Yola”. To support their claim that “Benue anti-grazing law cannot work”, mindless massacre of 72 people was carried out in the night. Buhari ignored warnings by Nigerian stakeholders including Wole Soyinka who advised the Fulani insurgents should not be treated with kid gloves, until the whole of the middle belt states was overrun.

Buhari’s management of the oil sector which accounts for over 80% of foreign earnings was no less disappointing.  Nigerians had hoped he would improve on his record as oil minister in 1977 and as Head of State in 1984. Curiously, none of Nigerian four refineries worked while his party’s promised modular, for eight years remained a promise.  And while the nation could not meet its OPEC quota of crude oil export due to massive crude oil theft, over N700 billion was being stolen daily under the fuel subsidy scam.

And despite Oronsaye recommendation, Buhari retained the instrument through which politicians and oil marketers commit this crime. For instance, the PPPRA, an outfit with a staff strength of 249, supervised by an unwieldy 22-man strong board, gobbling scandalously whopping salaries and allowances of N57.9 billion per annum, whose mandate include ending long queues at filling stations by making petroleum products  available at reasonable prices”, was retained even when its functions only duplicated those of Pipelines and Product Marketing Company, (PPMC) set up in 1988 to “profitably and efficiently market refined petroleum products and also maintain uninterrupted movement of refined petroleum products from the local refineries.”

Buhari’s management of the economy was no less disastrous. Perhaps scared by IMF that accused him of being stubborn, he went on a borrowing binge with Nigeria debt rising to $40b currently being serviced by about 95% of our national earnings. We can add to that the illegal printing of N23trillion through ways and means by CBN and one-year advance collection of crude oil sales revenue.

Nigerians had expected a probe of how Babangida’s Technical Committee on Privatization and Commercialization’s (TCPC) disposed of the following national assets: Assurance Bank, African Petroleum, Unipetrol, National Oil and Chemical Co. Plc, West African Portland Cement, Ashaka Cement, Northern Nigeria Cement, Nigeria Cement company, FESTAC 1977 Hotel, Nigerdock, Niger Insurance, Nigeria Re-insurance, Savannah Sugar, National Trucks Manufacturing, Electricity Meter Company, Zaria, Hamdala Hotel and Federal Palace hotel among many others. They had expected the same on the following national assets sold by Obasanjo’s 1999 Public Enterprises Privatization and Commercialization Act: Delta Steel Company valued at $1.5 billion but sold for $30m; NICON Insurance worth N6billion but allegedly bought with fake MoU and fake cheques, Ajaokuta Steel Company valued at $1.5 billion but sold for $30 million, ALSCON valued at $3.2b but sold for $130m, Nigeria Re-Insurance Corp. worth N50b but sold for N1.5b (see Adamu Adamu: “BPE: Behind Closed doors”(Daily Trust, August 12, 2011). There was also Abuja Sheraton Hotel and Towers built at a whopping $300m in 1986 but sold for a paltry $34m” and “Sofitel Hotel (NICON Luxury Hotels) built with a German loan of $139m in 1990 later sold off for $50m. (The Senate Committee on the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Probe (This Day, April 23 2008).

Buhari whose campaign promises included restructuring was to feign ignorance as to its meaning after the election. He was however schooled by the following Nigerian stakeholders who first reminded him that our “1954 structure, negotiated by our founding fathers ‘to promote the unity of Nigeria and protect the interest of diverse elements that make up the country’ was destroyed by our military adventurers.

For Atiku, restructuring means ‘less centralized, less suffocating and less dictatorial’ central government to satisfy agitation by some restive groups for self-actualization. For Alhaji Balarabe Musa, the former governor of Kaduna State, it is ‘a return to regional arrangement, where each region can create states, they can cater for, would certainly reduce injustice and inequality among the people’. For Emeka Anyaoku, the former Commonwealth Secretary, it is ‘a return to the regional structure practiced in the First Republic, with the country’s six regions forming the federating units. For Wole Soyinka it means “the basis of our association needed to be renegotiated if we are to prevent a disastrous disintegration”.

But Buhari would rather listen to Ango Abdullahi, the spokesman for Northern Elders Forum, who after tracing it to post-independence power rivalry between the Igbo and the Hausa Fulani, advised him to refer it the National Assembly, a product of injustice, by design and by composition” whose control by northern majority has made any change, including ordinary local policing impossible. And of course, Buhari’s  other trusted confidant is elder-statesman Tanko Yakassai who blamed the Yoruba for supporting self-actualization struggle by restive groups like the Tivs, Beroms, Katafs  of the Middle Belt and the Calabar-Ogoja-Rivers states of the Southeast since 1953.

• Buhari loves Nigeria but loves his fellow Fulani ethnic irredentists more.

The Nigeria Labour Congress, on Wednesday, expressed anger over the failure of about 90 per cent of states (over 30 states) in paying the wage award as agreed by the Federal Government and the organised Labour.

The NLC said this as pensioners who retired from the Federal Civil Service threatened to embark on a nationwide protest following the failure of the government to pay their wage award.

Labour leaders in Sokoto, Kano, Benue, and Bayelsa states told The PUNCH on Wednesday that their state governments had no paid  the wage award, while Gombe, Ogun, and Osun were paying N15,000 or N10,000.

The NLC Assistant General Secretary, NLC, Chris Onyeka, in an interview with The PUNCH on Wednesday, said state governors jettisoned negotiations, as they unilaterally gave workers N10,000 without any negotiation.

The payment of wage award to workers was one of the agreements between the organised labour and the Federal Government as one of the ways to mitigate the effect of the removal of subsidy on Premium Motor Spirit, popularly known as petrol.

In 2023, the NLC and Trade Union Congress entered into an agreement with the Federal Government where the latter agreed to pay a N35,000 wage award to workers for six months, as well as review the minimum wage in 2024.

On Tuesday, President Bola Tinubu in Niger State appealed to state governors to continue to pay workers in their various states the wage award till negotiations on a new minimum wage were concluded.

But speaking with one of our correspondents on Wednesday, the Assistant General Secretary, NLC lamented that about 90 per cent of states, representing over 30 states, were not paying the wage award to their workers.

He “About 90 per cent of the states have not paid wage awards. Some states I know decided to give workers N10,000 but the wage award is not decided alone.

“There is a process for it. There must be a negotiation with the workers. Wage award is not a dash out or a charity. The process must be inclusive,” Onyeka stated.

Gombe pays N10,000

But the General Secretary of the NLC in Gombe State, Ibrahim Fika, said so far, workers had received N10,000, as the wage award had yet to be implemented by the state government.

Fika said, “Nothing yet. We have only been paid N10,000 per month. We have not received the wage award as directed by the President. We are still hopeful that workers will be duly paid the agreed amount at the right time to reduce the hardship.”

The NLC leaders in both Sokoto and Kebbi states said workers in the two states had yet to receive any wage award from their respective state governments.

Speaking in separate interviews, the union leaders said they had commenced the process of negotiation for the wage award with the representatives of their governments.

The Chairman, NLC, Sokoto State, Abdullahi Jungle, said the state government would soon announce the wage award to its workers.

“We are still negotiating with the government and I am sure that very soon the state government and labour leaders will agree on how much to be paid to workers,” he said.

His counterpart from Kebbi State, Murtala Usman, said, “Yes, we are still negotiating and the outcome will soon be made public.”

Meanwhile, a senior aide to the governor of Sokoto State, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the state government had been adopting different measures to cushion the effect of the current economic hardship on its workers.

He said, “Look at the announcement made by the governor yesterday on the payment of half salary to all categories of workers including pensioners in the state to assist them in this month of Ramadan.

“This is apart from so many other measures being made available to workers including palliatives. I am sure the wage award will be addressed soon as usual.”

‘Bayelsa not paying’

In Bayelsa State, the state chapter of NLC said the state government had not been paying its workers the wage award.

The state NLC Secretary, John Angese, who stated this, said the state government had not given the organised labour a definite response on the issue of wage award.

He said, “No, the state government is not paying workers the wage award. The government has not given us any definite answer on that matter.

“The wage award is N35,000. The Federal Government paid only two months (to its workers) and stopped, now they are about to continue. That stoppage couldn’t allow us to make any serious case (with the state government) since the national government also defaulted.”

Also speaking, the Chairman of the Trade Union Congress, Ekiti State, Sola Adigun, said the hike in the prices of goods and services had made the wage award insignificant, hence the need for immediate conclusion of negotiation and implementation of a new living wage for workers.

Adigun said though the Ekiti State Government had since December last year been implementing the wage award for workers, “what is being implemented is not the same amount that the Federal Government expected.

“Here in Ekiti, all public servants at the states and Local Governments are given N15,000 monthly after the payment of salary. We have been paid for three months now, December, January, and February. Pensioners are being paid N10,000 monthly apart from their pensions.’’

When contacted, Osun State TUC Chairman, Bimbo Fasasi, said the state government started paying the wage award to workers and retirees in December 2023.

Fasasi, who added that the government had paid up to February, said, “Osun is paying N15,000 for active workers and N10,000 for retirees.

“It commenced payment last December 2023 and has paid up to February 2024. By March ending we are expecting the March wage award to come.”

The Kano State Government has yet to fulfill its promise on the payment of the N20,000 wage award it agreed to pay the state and Local Government workers for six months beginning from December 2023.

Similarly, the government has also yet to commence the payment of the N15,000 wage award it promised pensioners for three months from December 2023.

The Chairman of the NLC, Kabiru Inuwa, said this in a telephone interview with The PUNCH on Wednesday.

He said, “We agreed on N20,000 but the government has yet to begin the payment.”

According to him, the wage award was aimed at minimising the hardship being experienced by workers brought about by the fuel subsidy removal in the country but was not forthcoming in Kano State.

Efforts to get the state Commissioner of Information, Baba Dantiye, failed as his phone was switched off. He was said to be in the State Executive Council meeting.

A WhatsApp message sent to him was not replied as of the time of filing this report.

Labour in Benue State threatened to write to the national secretariat about the non-response of the state government to the wage award demand.

The state NLC Chairman, Terungwa Igbe, said the union had written to the state government about their desire to meet with the government.

He said, “We have not heard of anything from the state government despite the letter we wrote to them to have a meeting with them.”

Asked what would be the next line of action, Igbe said, “We are going to write to our national secretariat to inform it of the development.”

Meanwhile, the state government through the Commissioner for Finance and Budget Planning, Michael Oglegba, said the government would soon meet the labour union concerning the wage award.

The Chairman, TUC, Ogun State, Akeem Lasisi, said the state government had since July commenced the payment of N10,000 palliatives to the state workers.

“We were given 40 per cent of the basic salary starting from September 2023; N10,000 palliatives started in July 2023, while we also got Christmas bonus in December, ranging from N20,000 from Level 01 to N100,000 for level 15-17.”

Pensioners threaten protest

Meanwhile, pensioners who retired from the Federal Civil Service threatened a nationwide protest following the failure of the Federal Government to pay their wage awards.

The pensioners under the aegis of Federal Civil Service Pensioners, an affiliate of the National Union of Pensioners, expressed dismay at the failure of the Tinubu-led administration to pay the wage awards despite the untold hardship currently being faced by Nigerians.

While addressing selected members of the press in Abuja on Wednesday, the President of the Federal Civil Service Pensioners, Sunday Omezi, said pensioners were going through excruciating pains and agony.

“We feel constrained to bring to the knowledge of the world through this medium, the excruciating pains and agony we have been subjected over the years by the same government we served vigorously and diligently with our youthful energy without blemish only to be abused, dehumanised, marginalised and neglected with reckless abandon, after sapping our energy and leaving us dejected and consigned to rot and death,” he said.

Speaking on the unpaid wage award, Omezi said, “It is pathetic and disappointing to bring to the fore, the non-payment of the N25,000 wage award promised pensioners by the government.

“It is rather distasteful that up till date, no single payment has been made to pensioners. We are hereby demanding immediate payment of the award, because it is so embarrassing for such a promise to be left unfulfilled.”

Omezi also noted that pensioners have been crying profusely the tears of pain over the years through several official representations to the government.

“Our telling has been deliberately ignored, hence we are left with no option, but to cry out louder to the world to be informed of the pathetic condition we have been made to suffer by the same system that is expected to protest us.”

When asked whether the union would protest, Omezi said, “We are hoping it won’t get to that. That is the major reason we have this press briefing. However, if nothing is done, we may have to embark on a protest.’’

But the Niger State Governor Mohammed Bago has promised to start paying the State’s workers wage award beginning from March 2024.

The governor’s promise was the outcome of a round table negotiation with the leadership of the State chapter of the Nigeria Labour Congress NLC, in Minna.

Chairman of the Niger State NLC, Idrees Lafene, spoke with The PUNCH in a telephone chat on Wednesday in which he said President Bola Tinubu’s comment on wage award during his visit to the State was important to the State’s Labour Union.

He expressed confidence that the Niger State Governor would fulfill his promise to start paying the wage award from March 2024.

“I like what the president said, especially when he said governor’s should give wage award. That is the only thing hat remains for our Governor. If he is able to give wage award, he’ll be one of the best governors,” Lafene said.

Asked if the governor has started paying wage award, the NLC chairman said, “ Our agreement with the governor is this March, he said end of March, that is when he will start paying the wage award. He said he will pay N20,000”.

[Punch]

More controversies appear to be swirling around the 2024 budget as more indications that the portion of the budget attributable to some federal government institutions lack details and transparency.

The affected institutions, including the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, were allocated between N3.5 trillion and N3.7 trillion without specific expenditure heading, or stipulations of what the monies were meant for.

This came as the Minority Leader of the Senate, Abba Moro, expressed concerns yesterday that the Senate is currently having credibility problems, following suspension of the whistle blower, Senator Abdul Ningi.

This is even as Bauchi State governor, Bala Mohammed, also yesterday threw his weight behind Senator Ningi, the lawmaker representing Bauchi Central senatorial district, who was handed a three-month suspension by the Senate for his expose, just as Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre, CISLAC, and Transparency International in Nigeria, TI-Nigeria, declared Senator Ninigi’s suspension as sheer attack on freedom of expression and opposition’s rights.

Similarly, the presidential candidate of Labour Party in the 2023 general elections, Mr. Peter Obi, urged the Senate to come clean and clear all allegations associated with the N3 trillion padding in the 2024 budget.

Onigbinde, who was a guest on Channels Television’s ‘Politics Today’ programme late Tuesday, stated: “There should be a detailed breakdown of the budget. On that point, Senator Ningi is right”.

Ningi, of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) resigned as Chairman of the Northern Senators’ Forum, even as he was suspended by his colleagues in the red chamber on Tuesday over budget padding allegations.

BudGit fact-checks

But the BudGit co-founder, Onigbinde, said: “As the Senate rowdy session was going on, we were also fact-checking and one of the things we found is that we were not able to lay hold to the claim by Senator Ningi. A budget of N28.7trillion was passed into law and we were not able to see where N3.7trn (was missing).

“Historically, there are items in the budget that don’t have breakdown, like statutory transfers but that does not mean there is a certain level of capital projects by the Federal Government that was appropriated and does not have a breakdown.”

He said the entire capital project was around N9trn in the 2024 Appropriation Act signed into law by President Bola Tinubu after the bill was reviewed upward from N27.5trn to N28.78trn.
“The budget we have now have the ministries, departments and agencies (MDA) and the government-owned enterprise budget.

“Around N2trn of the budget presented by the President is the government-owned enterprises budget. So, if Senator Ningi says there is a N25trn budget, yes, that is the MDA’s budget. It’s different from the government-owned enterprises budget whose budget was now added.

“It is factual that he says that but it doesn’t mean that we are running two concurrent budgets. There is a different conversation that those projects should be detailed. TETFUND should not just get an allocation. What are you spending money on? INEC is collecting huge chunk of funds but there is no public details about what the funds are used for.

“In the current budget, the National Assembly gave a very broad summary of its allocations but there are no detailed allocations on a granular level that everybody can understand.

“These are transparent issues and if you put all these together, that is around N3.5trn to N3.7trn. So, if that is what he (Ningi) wants to interrogate, that there are components of the budget where there are no breakdown, that is very factual.”

The Budgit boss urged the executive and the National Assembly to ensure transparency in the budgetary allocations to MDAs and government-owned enterprises.

Senate already having some credibility problems – Minority Leader

Reacting to Ningi’s suspension yesterday, Senate Minority Leader, Abba Moro, said the upper chamber is having some credibility problems as a result.

Senator Moro said: “The budget in question was passed by the senators. Senator Ningi is a senator, he was a member of the Appropriation Committee. I am from the North and he purported to speak for the North.

“Why I was angry is that Senator Kawu Samaila who is the spokesperson of the Northern Senators Forum came before me and said he was going to address the press on this same matter while the debate was going on.

“I said ‘you don’t do that. You raised issues, we are tackling the issues and here you are, you want to address the press, go ahead and address the press.’ That was why I raised my hands because as minority leader, Senator Kawu Samaila is a member of the NNPP, he is with me and signed for me to be a minority leader.

“So why would he not accept my advice? As people have commented now, the Senate is already having some level of credibility problems. Why would an individual arrogate to himself the power to know it all, say it all?”

Speaking further, Senator Moro, who spoke in an interview on Channels Television’s breakfast programme, Sunrise Daily, yesterday, also defended the action of the Senate leadership, saying it did the right thing in Ningi’s matter.

‘I think the Senate did the appropriate thing, I was there. Budget padding may not be mentioned here now in the 10th Senate because previous budgets have been criticised based on budget padding.

“But this is the first time a participant senator who was honestly engaged in the whole process is coming out to say that what I did was wrong and rubbing it on all of us. I think it is not correct.”

He faulted Ningi’s action, recalling how the Northern Senators Forum had an audience with the Senate President in which Kawu and Ningi were in attendance.

Bauchi governor declares support for Ningi over Senate suspension

In his reaction yesterday, Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State defended Senator Ninigi for his expose, condemining the three months suspension slammed on him by the Senate.

He said: “We will, as the opposition to the Federal Government, say some of the things that should be done in our modest opinion, but it is not for us to disparage our country. ‘’Yesterday (Tuesday), I was very sad for the Senate to suspend one of our best from Bauchi for saying the truth, for standing up to be the beacon of truth.

“Equally, I don’t know what we will do but we will discuss privately to see what we can do to support him because I support whatever he is doing. And that is the face of the opposition, especially if what he saying is the truth. I am not too quick to go to the media but, certainly, he has shown courage.”

Come clean, clear all the allegations, Obi tells Senate

The presidential candidate of Labour Party in the 2023 general elections, Mr. Peter Obi, in his reaction yesterday, asked the Senate to come clean and clear all allegations associated with the N3 trillion padding in the 2024 budget.

He wrote: “The fuss over the alleged N3 trillion padded into the 2024 budget raised by a Senator still rages as the Senate reaction of suspending the whistle-blower has not addressed vital issues emanating from the allegation.

“The senator is insisting on his allegation and the executive agreed that there was only N1.2trillion padded, not N3trillion as alleged by the Senate.

“Fresh allegations have also cropped up over indiscriminate and unbalanced allocation of constituency projects by the Senate leadership.

“A civic group, Budgit, through their official, have also added their voice to agree with the Senator. They alleged that there was no detailed project allocations for about N3.7trn in the 2024 Appropriation Act.

“As the Senate suspension of the senator involved has not addressed the issue, they still owe the Nigerian public a clear clarification over the various claims and counter-claims, including that of the executive arm, to be able to know exactly what is happening, and also disclose to the public, the amounts allocated for constituency projects for appropriate monitoring of implementation by the public.

“I had particularly elucidated in my earlier comments on what we can use the N3 trillion to achieve, by showing that it is more than the national budget of the two most critical components of the human development index, health and education, combined.

“Now that the executive arm has accepted that the padded amount is only N1.2 trillion, it is still a very significant amount, when you consider that it is almost five times the N251.47 billion proposed for Universal Basic Education, which is the foundation of education, in the country.

‘Use the money for health, education’

“Today in Nigeria, the greatest challenge to human resource development is education, which has been identified as most critical at the basic level. Nigeria has about 20 million out-of-school children today because of the poor investment in education. These are resources that would have been utilised to ensure that our children are taken off the streets and returned to schools.

“If, indeed, the report from the BudgiT is true that there is about N3.7 trillion without any detailed project allocations, I strongly urge the Senate to do more detailed work of channelling these funds into the critical areas of development – education, health and pulling people out of poverty, which will in turn, minimise the criminality we are facing today.

“We must, as a matter of urgency, put a stop to all the wastage of our scarce resources, amid the excruciating hardship in the country. Let every penny of our public funds be used for public good. That is the only way to achieve the New Nigeria we are working towards.”

Ningi: Attack on freedom of expression, oppositions’ rights – CISLAC, TI

Also yesterday, the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre, CISLAC, and Transparency International in Nigeria, TI-Nigeria, declared the suspension of Senator Ningi as sheer attack on freedom of expression and opposition’s rights.

In a statement, Executive Director of CISLAC/TI-Nigeria, Auwal Rafsanjani, said the Senate’s action was not only undemocratic but also questionable.

Rafsanjani also pointed out that anything outside the provisions in the Declaration of Human Rights, 1948; Article 19 (2) of International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1966, was tantamount to deliberate violation of human right and apparent disregard to the rule of law.

He said: “The Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC)/Transparency International in Nigeria (TI-Nigeria) is seriously perturbed by the undemocratic action and questionable decision by leadership of the Senate as shockingly demonstrated in the recent unfounded suspension of the Senator Abdul Ningi.

“We are not unaware that the suspension was initiated against Senator Ningi for expressing his constitutionally guaranteed concerns and observations on 2024 budget at this critical moment when the nation is deeply soaked in socio-economic and financial crisis.

“The suspension is not unconnected with the public exposure of the N3trillion padded into the 2024 budget by the Upper Chamber, which has hitherto failed to display transparency and public accountability in its annual budgetary allocation and spending.

“This includes the inequality and disproportionate marginalisation surrounding the distributions of the N3trillion, where each senator is expected to receive N500million as constituency allowance.

‘’We recognise and affirm that freedom of expression and opinion remains sacrosanct to preserve the democratic culture, values and principles in Nigeria.

“We, without hesitation, uphold our position that freedom of opinion and expression is a constitutional and legally-backed right under Section 39 of the 1999 Constitution of Federal Republic of Nigeria; Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948; Article 19 (2) of International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1966; hence, the sanity and sanctity of these provisions must be strictly adhered, demonstrated and protected by a civic institution such as National Assembly.

‘’Anything outside these provisions is tantamount to deliberate violation of human right and apparent disregard to the rule of law.

“We must reiterate that the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as a supreme law of the country gives zero provision or power to the Senate to suspend a member of the National Assembly. ‘’Such provisions are only found in the ethics and privileges committee laws, which is answerable to the plenary through the Senate president.

‘’On this note, the committee laws cannot override the Constitution, especially in a matter of freedom of expression which is a fundamental right.

“Just as every member of the National Assembly representing his/her constituency has the primary mandates and responsibilities to absorb communal observations and offer feedback to the people for public accountability, expressing such in form of opinion must not be interfered, intimidated or suppressed in anyway or form.

‘Action projects legislative arm as autocratic’

“The repressive action by leadership of the Senate would clearly project the legislative arm as autocratic, which to a large extent would negatively impact legislators’ independence, robust debate, genuine submissions, and image of the legislature before Nigerians and rest of the world.

“Unjust suspension of a senator who represents an entire senatorial district is similar to public demonstration of unguarded culture of silencing,insensitivity, disrespect and marginalisation of the people.

“We strongly maintain that intimidating or silencing opinion of the dissents or oppositions is unhealthy in any civilised democracy and must not be tolerated as a culture in Nigeria. Despite the multiple number of opposition parties in the National Assembly, they appear to be conquered by power of the executive as well as the principal officers in the legislature.”

Rafsajani, however, called on the Senate not to silence opposition in the National Assembly, and warned that such action will lead to dictatorship and oppression, and should, therefore, not be allowed to exist in any form.

“We, therefore, call on the Senate to as a matter of urgency, shun silencing opposition views in the legislature; as the essence of the legislature is to allow for freedom of expression and contrary opinions as well as provide a democratic platform for constructive debates that enhance national interest.

“The greatest danger is that legislators can no longer be allowed to perform their duties, including oversight and opposing views on the executive and principal officers in the Senate which will be tantamount democratic dictatorships.

“We call on all well-meaning Nigerians and the media to protect and reject any undemocratic action or decision by the National Assembly targeted at impeding public accountability and shrinking civic space.’’

PDP demands Akpabio’s resignation, says it stands with Senator Ningi

Also reacting yesterday, Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, asked the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, to immediately step aside and allow for an independent investigation into the allegation that a staggering N3.7 trillion was discreetly inserted into the 2024 budget for alleged non-existent projects.

National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Debo Ologunagba, who made the party’s position public, in Abuja, yesterday, said the party also demanded that Senator Akpabio immediately report at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, over his pending case with the commission.

‘President should speak on N86b contract scam’

Ologunagba said: “Furthermore, the Senate President should speak out on the reported N86 billion contract scam in the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, during his tenure as the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs.

“The suspension of Senator Ningi is apparently a desperate move to suppress investigation, conceal and sweep the facts under the carpet.

“Moreover, the frustration of investigation by the APC Senate leadership further confirms PDP’s repeated alert that prominent APC officials in the National Assembly and a top official in the Presidency have been using ministers and other government functionaries to siphon budgeted funds from the national coffers.

“We ask, why did the APC leadership in the Senate not refer the matter to the appropriate Senate Standing Committee for an open investigation, in line with the extant Rules of the Senate? What is the APC Senate leadership afraid of and what is it hiding from Nigerians?

“It is even more absurd that instead of recusing himself, the Senate President sat as a judge in the matter; a situation that can bring the institution of the Senate to further public disrepute.

“This is especially as the issues at hand heavily border on alleged gross misconduct and criminal betrayal of public trust which are serious offenses under our laws.

“Nigerians can now see why the APC leadership in the National Assembly, especially in the Senate continues to condone the unbridled looting of public resources including funds meant for palliatives for poor and vulnerable citizens.

“This apparent inclination towards covering up sleaze in the polity is already pitching the institution of the Senate against Nigerians who are demanding for answers on the matter. Of course, the widely condemned suspension of Senator Ningi does not provide answers to the budget padding allegation.”

[Vanguard]

Nigeria has hired investment banks including Citibank NA, JPMorgan Chase & Co., and Goldman Sachs, to seek advice on its first eurobond issue since 2022.

According to a Bloomberg report, the size of the eurobond offer, which is expected before June, is yet to be determined.

The federal government could raise as much as $1 billion in external borrowing this year to meet its spending needs, according to sources who spoke to the publication.

The report said Nigeria has also hired Standard Chartered Bank and Lagos-based Chapel Hill Denham as advisers.

On January 1, President Bola Tinubu signed the N28.7 trillion budget for 2024 fiscal year, with a deficit of N9.8 trillion — which will be financed by borrowings from local and international investors and multilateral lenders.

Tinubu also received approval from the senate on December 30, 2023, to borrow the sums of $7.8 billion and €100 million as part of the 2022-2024 borrowing plan of the federal government.

The president had sent a request to the national assembly to approve the sum, saying the funds, when obtained, would be used to assuage the economic realities and undertake many projects cutting across various sectors of the economy.

Meanwhile, since he took office on May 29, 2023, Tinubu has been seeking to attract foreign investors back into the economy through several reforms.

Last year, on June 14, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) announced the unification of all segments of the foreign exchange (FX) market.

[TheCable]

Since the conclusion of my ‘missionary journey’ to Aso Rock almost 14 years ago, I have written more than a dozen columns on the need to reform the budgeting process in Nigeria. Notable ones include ‘The Illusion of Budget Performance’, ‘Budget War and Dysfunctional Envelope System’, ‘Buhari and the Budget Palaver’, ‘Nigeria’s 2016 Zero Budget!’ and ‘Of Government and Budget Blues’. The kernel of these interventions has always been to underscore the fact that what we call budget in Nigeria is essentially about the distribution of ‘political spoils.’ I have also repeatedly referenced a Twitter thread by ‘Laolu Samuel-Biyi who once concluded: “If you want to keep hope alive in Nigeria, don’t look at the budget”.

Had I heeded that admonition I would not have spent the whole of Monday and the better part of Tuesday perusing the 1000-page ‘2024 Appropriation Act FGN Budget Details Volume One’. By the time I was done, I was depressed enough not to bother with volume two of the same report. That second volume contains 1962 pages plus an additional 55 pages that are devoted to chronicling “Zonal Intervention Projects”. Had our lawmakers been content with what they will get from that aspect of the budget, we probably would not have had this controversy. But before I get ahead of myself, it is appropriate to ask: What exactly was I looking for?

Last Saturday, Senator Abdul Ahmed Ningi alleged that the N28.7 trillion 2024 budget being implemented by President Bola Tinubu was “done underground” with an “added sum of N3 trillion”. He then delved into the arena of sectional politics. The presidency was quick to debunk Ningi’s allegation, accusing him of lying. At the end, I was not surprised that Ningi received a three-month suspension from the senate or that he walked back on his allegation. There is neither North nor South, East nor West when it comes to sharing the proverbial ‘national cake’ at the National Assembly. This much could be glimpsed from the contribution of Senator Agom Jarigbe before he was shouted down. “All of us are culpable. Some so-called senior senators here got N500 million each from the 2024 budget. I am a ranking Senator; I didn’t get anything. No senator has any right to accuse Senator Ningi…” Jarigbe said to the displeasure of colleagues, in a scene described by a former governor as ‘Off the Mic 2.0.’

No matter how ill-motivated his allegations may be, Ningi cannot be casually dismissed. He is one of the most experienced lawmakers in Nigeria today having served in the National Assembly since 1999. He has also, at different times, been Majority Leader in the House of Representatives as well as in the Senate. When a man like that makes such weighty allegations, it is safe to conclude that there is no smoke without fire. But let’s first look at the bigger picture in the 2024 budget.

Under ‘Capital Supplementation’ (please don’t ask me what that means or how to explain the details below) many items come with round figure sums which raises questions about the process by which they were arrived at. For instance, ‘Contingency (Capital)’ has a vote of N200 billion; ‘Outstanding Liabilities’, N50 billion; ‘Clean Energy Initiatives: Development of Local Infrastructure, Conversion to CNG, Electric Vehicles etc.’, N130 billion; ‘Consumer Credit Fund’, N100 billion; ‘Infrastructure Project Preparation Fund’, N21 billion; ‘Mortgage Development Promotion Fund’, N65 billion; ‘Recapitalization of Ministry of Finance Incorporated (MOFI)’, N20 billion; ‘Restructuring/Recapitalization of NIPOST’, N10 billion; ‘Special Projects SGD’, N30 billion; ‘Subscription to shares in International Organizations’, N15 billion; ‘Recapitalisation of Development Finance Institutions’, N10 billion etc.

The interesting bits of course come with the breakdown of budgets for the Ministries Department and Agencies (MDAs). I have decided to pick the budget of the Ministry of Works. Not because of the quantum of money allocated to the ministry (more than a trillion Naira) but rather because I recently commended the Minister, Dave Umahi when he made a declaration of preference for concrete roads as opposed to bitumen roads in the country. From the budget, I doubt if he would be constructing any serious road this year—bitumen or concrete.

As an aside, in view of Senator Jarigbe’s allegation, I did ‘research’ on the N500 million projects. There are nine road constructions/rehabilitations under the Ministry of Works with each allocated N500,410,000. Two are in Akwa Ibom State, another two for the Ibadan-Ogbomosho Expressroad, one for the Enugu-Port Harcourt Road, one for the Ilorin-Jebba-Mokwa Road, and one for the Bida-Lambata Road in Niger State. The one for the ‘Ifaki-Oye-Ayedun-Omuo-Kogi border in Ekiti State’ is simply for a rounded figure of N500 million without any ‘addendum’. In the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, 20 projects totalling N18 billion (and most of which have nothing to do with agriculture) are going to Akwa Ibom North West senatorial district being represented by Senate President Godswill Akpabio. There are also five ‘empowerment’ projects in the Ministry of Women Affairs each costing N500 million, all to the same senatorial district in Akwa Ibom State. You find many such projects in the constituencies of National Assembly Principal Officers across several ministries. And these are not part of the ‘zonal intervention projects’ that are solely for the lawmakers.

Now, to the Ministry of Works. The 2024 capital budget for the ministry is N916,574,239,856. There is an additional allocation of N70,611,518,333 for the Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA). Aside the N2.2 billion for vehicles and N4.1 billion for electricity, provision for the construction of roads takes N438 billion while ‘Construction of Infrastructure’ takes N209 billion. Then you have another 242.9 billion allocations for ‘Rehabilitation/Repair’ of roads.

In all, I counted 961 projects in the ministry’s 2024 budget listed as ONGOING. Interestingly, I have been told by those who should know that when you see ONGOING after a project, it is to circumvent the public procurement process. Many could be new projects. But let’s even leave that matter for now. Any critical observer will see that most of these ‘ONGOINGs’ are just about leaving small money ‘on the table’ for some local operatives, considering the amounts involved. For instance, there is a vote of N4.1 million each (yes, N4.1 million) for more than 20 ‘ongoing’ road constructions/rehabilitations in this ministry. They include ‘Special Repairs of Ilesa-Ijebu Road in Osun State Route number F117 (Phase 2)’; ‘Special Repairs of Birni Kebbi-Argungu-Kan Iyaka (Sokoto State border) Route 219’; ‘Special Repairs of Talatan-Marafan Sokoto Border Road, Routes 85’ and so many others. If we can excuse all that, what about the vote of N1.4 million for each of these major projects? ‘Reconstruction of Benin-Warri Dual Carriageway (Section 3: Ibada-Elume-Warri) (Km 66+275-KM+800 in Delta State’; ‘Construction of Bidda-Sacci-Nupeco Road across River Niger linking Nupeco and Patigi in Niger/Kwara State’ etc.

I know we have magicians in Nigeria but to construct a road and bridge across River Niger for N1.4 million is something else. Under NEW projects which I will come to shortly, there is also a N1.4 million vote for the ‘Rehabilitation of Makurdi-Gboko-Katsina Ala Road’. The ‘Design and Construction of Ogrite (Enugu State)—Akpanya-Oduru (Kogi State) Extension 2 With Extension to Obollo Afor’ takes N61.5 million. The same amount is voted for ‘Washout and Critical Threatened Road Section of Federal Road in Kaduna State’ and more than 30 other road projects across the country. And please don’t bother to correct the grammar. I merely dubbed what is in the 2024 appropriation law of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. And please also don’t ask me how; but those amounts of money will leave the treasuries.

If the above are for ‘local operatives’, we can guess to whom no fewer than 85 percent of the road projects with the same amounts of monetary allocations would go. About 130 of them have a vote of N71,750,000 (that’s N71.7 million) each, while most of the rest are either N61,500,000 or N287,000,000 or N100,410,000. The interesting thing about the last figure is that two votes stand out. ‘Construction of Ikorodu-Itoikin Road (Sabo Roundabout to Itoikin Market)’ goes for N1,100,410,000. For the ‘Construction of Malando Garin Baka Wara Road in Kebbi State’ it is going for N10,100,410,000. Obviously, some people are clever at juggling figures!

Collectively, we have about 1200 road projects (ONGOING and NEW) in the Ministry of Works. With the budget already cannibalized, Nigerians who expect Umahi’s ‘concrete roads’ would wait in vain. Let’s now go to some of the NEW projects of which there are 237. Most of them are also in round figure sums, ranging between N10 million and N100 million. Of course, there are also ‘small potatoes’ here. Like the ‘Improvement of Electricity to Shagari Town, Sokoto State’, with a vote of N1 million! Same for the ‘Improvement of Electricity Supply to Argungu-Iyabo, Sokoto Community’. If you think such amounts make no sense or imagine the projects should be under the Ministry of Power, then you don’t understand budget in Nigeria.

Meanwhile, what you find in the Ministry of Works is replicated in all the other MDAs where monies are simply shared. For instance, under the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, you have a vote of N100 million for the ‘Renovation and Equipping of Block of Classrooms in Selected Communities of Yewa North LGA and Imeko Afon LGA in Ogun State.’ I guess that is part of ‘boosting food security’ in the country!

Overall, if you combine the N1.2 trillion ‘officially added’ by the National Assembly (which President Bola Tinubu has gleefully accepted) to other insertions, you will be looking at around 30 percent of the capital budget that does not pass the test of transparency and accountability. But nobody is deceived. The insertions are not only for the lawmakers, many of the ‘projects’ are also for members of the executive and judiciary as well as their friends in the private sector. That’s the way we roll with budgets in Nigeria. The more interesting thing is that if you check the budgets of previous years, they are based on the same template.

What I find disturbing is that President Tinubu is comfortable with what the National Assembly has done with the 2024 budget and is even defending it. This is strange. Signing the 2022 Appropriation Bill into law two years ago, then President Muhammadu Buhari expressed concern over the alterations made by the National Assembly. These changes, according to him, “are in the form of new insertions, outright removals, reductions and/or increases in the amounts allocated to projects.” He added that ‘‘provisions made for as many as 10,733 projects were reduced while 6,576 new projects were introduced into the budget by the National Assembly.”  

The distortions by the National Assembly on allocations for those critical projects, Buhari further warned, “may render the projects unimplementable or set back their completion.” He added that most of these projects “relate to matters that are basically the responsibilities of states and local governments, and do not appear to have been properly conceptualised, designed and costed. And many more projects have been added to the budgets of some MDAs with no consideration for the institutional capacity to execute the additional projects and/or for the incremental recurrent expenditure that may be required.’’  

The National Assembly of course fought back and Buhari capitulated. But we cannot continue this way. Reforming the budgeting process is important if we want to develop as a nation. That will not happen until our lawmakers become alive to their oversight responsibility. Section 88, subsection 2(b) of the 1999 Constitution expects the National Assembly to “expose corruption, inefficiency or waste in the execution or administration of laws within its legislative competence and in the disbursement or administration of funds appropriated by it”. But how can they do that effectively when they engage in a politically incestuous relationship with the executive?

If you speak to any of our lawmakers, they will remind you that even in the United States, there is what is called ‘Earmark’ which refers to ‘federal spending for a specific project for a particular congressional district, locality, or state.’ What they would not tell you is that even in the United States, so controversial are these spendings (most often linked with corruption) that they were dispensed with for ten years and only returned in 2021. Besides, the budgeting guidelines from the Congress Committees on Appropriations has capped earmark spending at no more than 1 percent. And in the US, lawmakers are not the contractors for these projects, unlike what obtains here. My authority on that is no other than Akpabio who, as Niger Delta Minister, confirmed that most of the contracts in the MDAs go to our federal lawmakers.

For me, the value of Ningi’s allegation is the opportunity for a conversation on budgeting process, if we are truly serious about changing the narrative of our country. As I have always argued, the current regime of ‘envelope system’ which essentially means that we simply determine spending categories rather than spending priorities, cannot serve our nation. With resource allocation made to resemble a distribution of spoils rather than a collective plan for an integrated whole, it is difficult to blame the National Assembly members for the insertion of projects because they are merely aping what they know members of the executive did with the proposal submitted to them. Ministers, heads of parastatals and top bureaucrats (who did not go through the rigour of any election) also insert projects not only for themselves but their principals. As I wrote two years ago, one only needs to check the number of federal government projects being taken to Daura under Buhari to understand this. Yet, when a national budget is reduced to sharing public resources between and among powerful interests as it has become in Nigeria, how can a society develop?  

In my book, ‘Power, Politics and Death’, I highlighted what happened with the 2008 budget which the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua was reluctant to sign due to what he considered the extreme meddlesomeness of the lawmakers. The main contention at that time was that the lawmakers had virtually rewritten the budget by introducing several clauses in contravention of the principle of separation of powers and inserting several projects with costs that were arrived at through guess work. “In summary, the legislators unilaterally initiated projects for which they provided money without any input from the executive which ordinarily should design, cost, execute and supervise such projects” I wrote, recounting how and why the option of judicial interpretation from the Supreme Court was eventually discarded. That we are still talking about the same problem 16 years after reflects the lack of accountability that drives public finance in Nigeria.   

With the suspension of Ningi, the National Assembly might imagine that everything has been resolved. It has not. We will not ‘Off the Mic’ on this issue. As I stated in the past, while the idea of restructuring may mean different things to different people, what some of us have always advocated is a serious national conversation around the appropriate institutional design to make government and those who hold the levers of power (whether in the executive, judiciary, or legislature) accountable to Nigerians. It is about how we can harness the much-touted potential for the greater good of our people. This will not happen until we reform critical areas of our national life. That includes the budgeting process!

I wish all my Muslim readers Ramadan Kareem!

The Ibom Deep Sea Port and Ibom Industrial city are expected to generate about 300,000 jobs upon it's completion, thereby contributing positively to the Gross Domestic Product of our Country. Our children are therefore encouraged to embark on relevant courses that will give them advantage in the maritime industry.

Recall that Pst. Umo Bassey Eno, the Governor of Akwa Ibom State, had on Wednesday, 10th January, 2024 sought the Federal Government’s support to fully implement the Ibom Deep Seaport project.

As part of efforts towards the realization of the projects, on Wednesday, 13th March, 2024, the Governor took members of the Technical Committee on the Implementation of Ibom Deep Seaport round the new office accommodation assigned to them on the third floor of Dakkadda Towers, the State-owned 21-storey smart building on Udo Udoma Banking layout, Uyo.

During the Governor's meeting with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu (GCFR) in January 2024, he argued that Nigeria’s South-South needs a seaport serving its population even as he described other seaports, especially that of Lagos as “congested”.

According to the Governor after a successful meeting with the committee and some Technical Partners on Wednesday, 13th March, 2024, "The move to allocate the new office space to the committee was necessitated by the need to avail them of requisite and befitting Infrastructure to aid the realization of the Deep Seaport Project in line with resolutions at the meeting."

Stating further, the Governor said "I think we have had a good discussion and we have commenced the whole process again. What I can say is that we are ready now, we are back and you will begin to see activities geared towards the realization of the Ibom Deep Seaport."

The Ibom Deep Seaport, located at the South East of Akwa Ibom State, is planned to be a deep-water facility built on a natural draft of about 17.5 meters, one of the deepest in the region.

Experts say the depth is a key feature allowing it to accommodate large vessels and handle a variety of cargo, including containers, dry bulk and liquid cargo. The IDSP will be owned by the Federal Government of Nigeria through the Nigeria Ports Authority in partnership with Akwa Ibom State Government and private investors.

Although the Federal Executive Council approved the Outline Business Case for the Public-Private Partnership project in May 2015, it remains uncompleted nearly a decade later. However, the immediate past Gov. Udom Emmanuel's administration said it has midwifed critical stages of the project’s development.

The Chairman of the Technical Committee on the Implementation of Ibom Deep Seaport, Mrs. Mfon Usoro however thanked for the office accommodation and other forms of support to the committee which she described as a demonstration of the Governor's commitment to the project.

The Ibom Deep Sea Port aims to become the Eastern Gateway of Nigeria, providing vital port capacity for the Country. Lagos, the existing gateway is situated at the Western part of the Country and is severely congested from the Sea and land sides, leading to delays for Ships entering the Port and leaving the Port due to capacity constraints on the terminal.

Ibom Deep Sea Port has two prime Characteristics that enables it to provide vital Port capacity: It is accessible for ships with draft up to 15m and it has an abundant availability of land in the Port area and it's sorroundings. The project is based on the following needs:-

✅To provide much needed container handling and storage capacity.

✅To provide much needed imports capacity for petroleum products.

✅To provide imports capacity for vehicles.

✅To provide dedicated import capacity for food and agricultural products.

✅To provide dedicated export capacity for industrial output and natural resources.

✅To provide supply base for the regional Oil and Gas sector.

✅To provide a Ship yard and dry dock for Ship building, Vessel Maintenance and Repairs.

✅To provide a logistics base and regional trading hub in West Africa.

The Ibom Deep Sea Port is a green field Deep Sea Port project located on the Atlantic Coast about 65km to the Southeast of Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria. The Port is an integrated development with the proposed Ibom Industrial city site that will be established on 14,517 ha. The land area allocated for the Port development is 2, 565 ha. The Ibom Deep Sea Port project shall be developed on the Southern part of the Ibom Industrial city site, with direct access to deep Sea trade routes, stable and predictable natural conditions, and ample area for expansion of the Port and the free trade zone.

The Development of the 30km road connecting the project to the federal highway and 20km Channel connecting the project to the Deep Sea are equally included in the responsibilities of the PDMC.

With the completion of a Port of this magnitude in Akwa Ibom State, the State will no doubt move to the front stage industrially in the Scheme of things in the Country and that will signal the end of Akwa Ibom State being describe as a Civil Service State, as the volume of Industrial activities to be carried out in the State, occasioned by the completion of the Sea Port can better be imagined.

I therefore call on the Minister of Transport, the director of Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC), the managing Director of Nigerian Port Authority (NPA) and other relevant Federal Government Agencies involved in Port operation to come to our aide by doing everything humanly possible to fast track the development of the Ibom Deep Sea Port, as the Port stand to generate considerable revenue both for the Federal Government and Akwa Ibom State respectively.

Pst. Solomon Essiet (ACIA)

Special Assistant on New Media to the Governor of Akwa Ibom State