By Ishaya Ibrahim
The Nigerian government will soon commence sharing of the $322 million Abacha loot that was recovered from Switzerland.
Many think the idea of sharing money to the supposedly poor people is faulty, and will not help their cases whether in the immediate or long term basis.
They think it is tantamount to a society where the people eat their tomorrow today, wondering whether Nigerians will not be better off enjoying the result of strategic and calculated investment of the booty is areas where the ripple effect will be huge.
Talk about investment in agriculture, education, health care, road infrastructure, small scale business, and the government cannot be wrong.
The beneficiaries, according to the government, will be 302,000 poor households in 19 states. They will each be given N5,000 monthly to alleviate their plight.
TheNiche has compiled five investment options that could have the most impact on the poor instead of the N5,000 handout which is unlikely to change their status.
The $322 million is the equivalent of N115 billion.
1. Lagos Ibadan Expressway
Chief Executive Officer at Cowry Asset Management Limited, Johnson Chukwu is of the view that more economic activities in Nigeria could be unlocked if the federal government utilized the Abacha loot to complete the Lagos-Ibadan expressway. The completion of that road, he says, could lead to economic activities that would create jobs in the economy.
“The way to transform an economy is to do it the way the Chinese have done, the way the Indians have done and the way the Brazilians are doing – invest in infrastructure.
“If we don’t do that, everything we are doing is a joke. The family is the economic unit of every society. If the parents are working, you don’t need to feed their children in school. They will feed them. They will clothe them and put them in the right accommodation. Do you know the implication of simply building that road from Lagos to Ibadan? More factories will be in Ibadan,” he says.
2. Agriculture
Uche Uwaleke, Professor of Economics and head of Finance department, Nasarawa State University, Keffi, says the money would be more effective in Agriculture.
The federal government’s allocation on agriculture in the 2018 budget is N173 billion, and more than half of it is for running the bureaucracy of the agriculture ministry.
Uwaleke said cash transfer scheme as a poverty alleviation formula is defective because what the poor need most is food, access to water and healthcare.
3. Small businesses
Former managing director of Unity Bank Plc, Rislanudeen Mohammed, thinks the money could be more effective in supporting small businesses.
He said doling out cash to the poor is at best, a palliative which can only have a short-term impact. He said investment programmes that will target supporting micro-economy would lift more people out of poverty than the palliatives.
4. Health
For the health sector, the federal government budgeted N340 billion as its spending in 2018. Eighty per cent of the allocation or N270 billion is for personnel and recurrent cost while N71 billion or 20 per cent is for capital projects.
What is left for capital projects is too tiny to go round the 22 federal medical centres, 20 teaching hospitals, psychiatric hospitals, research centres, specialised medical schools and other health institutions.
In LUTH, for instance, its capital allocation in the budget is just N300 million. What is even worse is that it may never be released.
If the government had invested the Abacha loot in the health sector, some of the hospitals could become a source of succour for the poor who also face the challenge of ill health.
5. Education
Apple chief executive officer, Tim Cook, was quoted to have said that China has become the preferred choice for big brands because its people have extraordinary skills.
For Nigeria to move up the ladder of industrialization, it must produce people with the kind of Chinese skills. But current spending on education can’t achieve that.
Head of Politics and International Relations department, Lead City University Ibadan, Tunde Oseni said: “We need the education to develop. That is how Singapore moved up. They built thinking schools where students are encouraged and inspired to think through problems and bring about initiatives and solutions.
“In Switzerland, they devote one or two hours every day to technical education. We need such models,” he said.
The recovered Abacha could have also been invested in education, he said.
