Nigeria was ushered into civilian rule in 1999 after a tenuous history of military interregnum following failed experiments in 1983 and 1993 and so the drumbeats of rule of law, accountability and fiscal responsibility; the tripod of any serious democratic government were equally ushered in or ….so we thought. By 1998 when the infamous regime of General Sani Abacha was mysteriously truncated , the stage was set for the recovery of government funds allegedly looted by the former military hard man. Some =N=65 Billion was allegedly recovered from his house. Some other funds believed to be running into billions of dollars have been traced to Swiss banks where they were stashed. The Obasanjo administration labored through thick and thin to recover the said funds with the help of the World Bank and other bodies. The least Nigerians expected from him therefore, was a disciplined disbursement and expenditure of the recovered funds by the government.
Dr.Ngozi Okonko Iweala, a seasoned economist with her cognate fiscal experience from the World Bank was saddled with the responsibility of piloting the affairs of an economy that was riddled with sleaze and re-positioning it in line with the avowed desire of the government to tighten the purse strings of government first by the Obasanjo Administration and later by the administration of Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. Her style was not a rambunctious, swashbuckling fiscal policy style like we all expected since President Obasanjo retained the plenitude of powers of fiscal policy. She was the poster lady of the administration with a lessened repository of powers but whose records at the World Bank served as a constant reminder to all and sundry of her capacity as the financial Czar of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. By 2003 to 2005 when the Abacha loots were supposedly ploughed back into the economy, Dr Okonjo Iweala had secured the confidence of the then President to make certain crucial calls. Dr NOI as she is popularly called by her fans and peers was appointed by Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan as the Minister of Finance and the self-styled coordinating Minister of the economy. Many considered her the un-official Prime Minister. She was allowed an unfettered latitude in economic matters by the then President. When the global market for oil kept plummeting, she reportedly and stubbornly left the oil benchmark for the 2015 budget at =N=65.00 despite projections to the contrary. Fiscal pundits predicted an impending nosedive of the economy; she gave it a clean bill of health. Who are we to question her? Who are we to rebut her position? Who is the President to second-guess her opinion? She was the expert and final authority on the matter- QED! Not long after the handover and the unprecedented financial profligacy this country has ever experienced in the course of the elections, reality began to dawn on all and sundry. Governors can no longer pay salaries. The debt profile of over 70% of the states was hitting the roof. How did we not see all that? How could we have missed the tell tale signs just a couple of months earlier? What happened to the trusted judgment of NOI? Something must have gone wrong! While many people flayed her in the media for presiding over perhaps the greatest graft in the annals of this country and failing to tighten the purse-strings of government, others decided to cut her some slack and concocted all sorts of excuses from the lame to the ludicrous in a bid to exculpate her from the fiscal heist that happened under her watch.
SERAP, a Non-Governmental Organization received a response to its letter to the World Bank requesting a breakdown of how the Abacha loots were spent. The response was characteristically pedestrian from Madam Okonjo Iweala. The response was terse and devoid of particulars. She stated that the money was spent on Education, road construction, health etc. one would have expected particulars of how much was disbursed to the respective ministries or even a breakdown of how many Federal roads, Federal hospitals and teaching Hospitals benefitted from the largesse. What were the equipment acquired for these hospitals and for how much. More piquing is the fact that this issue is coming up at a time several Federal roads have received no attention from the Federal Government for decades. The Health centers are in a deplorable state and the education sector virtually comatose. So where and how did NOI and her bosses spend the 65 Billion naira Abacha loot? Her answer is riddled with posers that she herself cannot answer. It is either Nigerians are being taken as fools or someone is being mendacious with her report. Clearly, if her answers had particularized the disbursements to the respective ministries during the period under review, it would have been much better since she only oversees the disbursements and not necessarily the expenditures. Our beloved NOI had since equivocated on her earlier answer by showing a copy of a letter/memo to the Presidency showing that some funds were disbursed to the office of the National Security Adviser, Rtd. Col Mohammed Sambo Dasuki, ostensibly to acquire weapons for the Boko haram insurgency. The latter has since been facing sundry charges on how the money was expended with chilling revelations coming from all corners. A school of thought feels she is not complicit in any way. To make our situation very picturesque, what happened is simply analogous to the case of a Chief Accounting Officer of an establishment relinquishing the cash in her possession to say, the procurement Officer of the establishment to help acquire some plants and machinery for the firm and then abdicating every responsibility to the Procurement Officer to probably account to “God” For the disbursements. One wonders what the Chairman of the establishment would say to the Chief Accounting Officer when the periodic stock-taking meeting of the firm comes up. One wonders indeed, what the Chief Accounting officer would say to management, that he has disbursed the money without any feedback from the Procurement Officer on how same was expended? That his job stops upon disbursement of the funds to the procurement officer and no more? Such is the quandary we have been plunged into as a nation. Such is the depth of the mediocrity even from one of the very best brains in the business; we have been faced with as a nation. How many average Nigerian men fail and or forget to question their spouses once in a while on the monthly stipend given to them for the family upkeep, especially in view of the biting cash crunch which we are even facing as a nation? Questions and debates about the price of cream bought by the wife , the choice of salon and hairstyle , even the price of the weavon she wears and perfume (if they can afford the luxury) would invariably crop up and make the man to either tighten or loosen the purse strings depending on whether the wife was prudent or profligate. And some persons actually think Madam NOI does not owe us some explanations? The present diatribes being exchanged by Madam with some eminent Nigerians like Governor Adams Oshiomole and Mr. Femi Falana to mention a few, leaves much to be desired. Her responses raise more questions than answers.
If there was no complicity but merely obeying “orders from above” one would have expected Madam to honourably resign, but no, she stayed put and even participated actively in the electioneering campaigns of her employers urging Nigerians to re-elect the government that removed accountability from its list of responsibilities. No one has even queried Okonjo Iweala on her part in the whole sordid transaction yet; it would not be completely out of place to flay her for failing to monitor the expenditure thereof with her wealth of experience. For a woman who has reportedly earned her place in the annals of history to be goofing in this embarrassing manner is most unfortunate. Having overseen one of the most turbulent fiscal periods in the nation’s history, one expected more from NOI. Her lame attempts to explain away the expenditure of the Abacha loot once again brings a familiar saying to mind; quo custodiet, ipsos custodes (who will guard the guards).
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