Finance and Economy Co-ordinating Minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, disclosed penultimate week that Nigeria has recovered another tranche of the money the late Head of State, Sani Abacha, looted from the treasury and stashed away in Switzerland.
Ngozi Okonjo-Iwealaeal
The latest recovery of 67 million euros (N1.6 billion) is about the largest since 1999 when Abuja began the campaign for the return of stolen wealth from Europe and America.
Much loot was discovered during the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidency when Nuhu Ribadu headed the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). However, recovery began during the tenure of the late President Umaru Yar’Adua.
Penultimate week, President Goodluck Jonathan said an inter-ministerial committee will be set up to identify projects on which the recovered N1.6 billion will be spent.
He was not clear if the committee will be a permanent tool for managing all loot recovered from within or outside the country.
Here is a list of projects on which the committee can zero its search.
Unfinished Sure-P projects
Prelude to the protest over fuel subsidy removal in January 2012, Abuja had made a strong argument that the savings made from subsidy would be invested in public infrastructure.
It listed hundreds of projects countrywide to channel the funds, after setting up a subsidy re-investment committee. Those projects have not benefitted.
PPP projects
The government has realised that it cannot fund infrastructure alone, having caught the Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) bug. Part of the recovered money should be invested in strategic PPP projects to fast-track their completion by the 2017 deadline given by Jonathan.
Ibaka deep sea port
This project, which links wide body water in Akwa Ibom State to the Atlantic Ocean maritime route, is a vital asset conceived since colonial times.
People wonder why successive authorities responsible for developing the maritime sector have not seen the Ibaka deep sea port as a priority.
Judgement debts
Justice does not end with pronouncement of judgment by jurists. Justice is fulfilled when the aggrieved party is fully compensated or assuaged. The government owes a lot of judgment debts to groups and individuals, among them the residents of Odi in Bayelsa State.
The people of Odi suffered genocide in 2001 when the Obasanjo administration unleashed a battalion of soldiers to quell protests against ecological degradation of the place where Nigeria’s first train of crude oil export was made in 1956.
Scores of people were killed and thousands displaced.
Survivors obtained a court judgment which ordered Abuja to pay damages to Odi community. The debt is yet to be paid.
Same applies to the people of Ogoni in Rivers State who obtained a judgment from the United Nations Environmental Protection (UNEP) court.
A civil rights activist, Daniel Ebikeme, advised Abuja to “direct all recovered loots to offset the debt the government of Nigeria, past and present, owe the Niger Delta for the years of wicked degradation of the environment in spite of our generosity to this country.”
Oguta lake
The Oguta lake port project has been on the drawing board since the Second Republic. Politics of attrition has marred it.
Just like Ibaka deep sea port, Oguta lake is about 100 nautical miles into the Atlantic maritime route. Yet the government is still stuck with Lagos ports with all the political and economic risks of concentrating maritime infrastructure in one place.
Oguta lake is among projects slated to benefit from the Sure-P programme inaugurated in 2012. It is waiting to be done.
Projects billed for completion in 2017
Abuja has inaugurated many projects to be commissioned in 2017 to create jobs, develop infrastructure, grow the economy and hedge inflation. The projects can be funded with recovered funds.
Areas where the funds should not be channelled include:
EFCC
There is no need to continue to pump public funds into the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), which is long on propaganda, press conferences, and court arraignments but short on conviction.
Security
The military needs a total overhaul, as it has not given a good account of the N2 trillion voted for security in the past two years.
About N968.127 billion is budgeted for defence this year, from which N130.7 billion was disbursed between January and April, according to Okonjo-Iweala.
Despite the huge budget, the military does not have a single spy plane to protect the most populous country in Africa.
Public wage bill
Nigeria’s public servants earn more than they deserve. And there is no account of how previous recovered funds have been utilised. So, if the government is looking for where to spend, it should be in infrastructure.
New contracts
The inter-ministerial committee should be composed of development experts and technocrats to avoid it serving the interest of groups and formulate white elephant projects.
An economist, Tony Nnakwe, said “any recovered fund should be directed into rehabilitating infrastructure. Abacha did nothing in terms of infrastructure, he was pre-occupied with pursuing democracy activists.”
