It has been officially revealed that between June 1999 and June 2007, a period of eight years, Nigeria’s federating partners that are Federal, States and Local governments, shared from the Federation Account, the staggering sum of N16. 4 trillion from federally collected revenues. This amount is equivalent to 200 billion dollars! The Federal Ministry of Finance and the Federation Account and Allocation Committee, FAAC, made these revelations.(Picture shows immediate past President Olusegun Obasanjo) Between July 2007 and December 2008, a period of seventeen months, about 11.4 trillion was shared among same thereby bringing the gross total to over N27 trillion or over 200 billion dollars (exchange rate of N130 to one US dollar is used). It is important to point out that capital receipts and other sundry revenue receipts were not included. For instance, according to informed sources, Nigeria receives average of 400 million dollars yearly, in aids and grants from abroad. This shows that Nigeria would have received about 4 billion dollars or N520 billion in aids and grants in the past 9 ½ years. The N11.4 trillion shared in seventeen months was as a result of high oil prices and excess crude oil proceeds.
Also, each of the 36 States and the FCT, reportedly generates average of N1 billion from IGR yearly. This shows that about 400 billion would have been generated on average, in the past 9 ½ years. It is worthy to mention that the core oil States of Rivers, Delta, Akwa Ibom and Bayelsa and the non-oil States of Lagos, Ogun, Kano and the FCT, generate juicy internal revenues. The 774 local government areas in Nigeria are believed to have generated N8 billion (N10 million each) yearly from their IGR or about N80 billion since 9 ½ years ago. Loans of both harsh and soft conditionalities amounting to hundreds of billions of naira, which largely remained unpaid, had also been obtained by Nigeria’s federating partners in the past 9 ½ years.
From the foregoing statistics, it is safe to assert that over N1 trillion must have been added to the total money shared by the Nigeria’s federating partners in the past 9 ½ years, which means they might have shared over N28 trillion in the period under review. Regionally speaking, the South-south geopolitical zone received the highest allocations of over N3.6 trillion in the past 9 ½ years, while the South-east got the least allocations of about N1.2 trillion.
Further, between (June) 1999 and 2007 (June) the South-east (excluding its 95 local government areas) got the sum of N918 billion. Between July and December 2007, it got about N100 billion and in 2008, it got about N200 billion, on average of N40 billion per State. In the area of South-south, it got about N750 billion in 2008 and N350 billion between July and December 2007. When added to the local government allocations, IGRs, and other money receipts, the South-south might have received over N6 trillion in the past 9 ½ years.
It is also our calculation that the 95 local government areas in the South-east might have received a total of about N800 billion from the Federation Account in the past 9 ½ years. It is further calculated that the local governments in each of the five South-east States received average of N15.6 billion per year or N1.3 billion per month. In terms of the local government IGRs, it is calculated that the 95 local government areas in the South-east zone might have generated the sum of N11 billion in the past 9 ½ years, on average of N10 million per local government per month. The five South-east States might have generated about N50 billion in the period under review, from their IGRs, on average of N1 billion per year. These would have brought the total revenues collected and shared by the South-east authorities in the past 9 ½ years to N2.6 trillion.
In 2008 alone, the sum of N5.446 trillion was withdrawn from the Federation Account and shared among the federating partners. The N2.475 trillion, saved in the form of “excess crude proceeds” was also withdrawn and shared. It is extremely important to point out that the 60 billion dollars or N7.8 trillion so shared in 2008 is far more above the total annual incomes of the ECOWAS countries of Ghana, Ivory Coast, Benin, Togo, Liberia, Guinea, Bukinafaso, Sierra Leone, Gambia, etc, yet most of them are far more ahead of Nigeria in terms of infrastructure, social development, industrialization and energy.
In the Nigeria’s 2009 budget of N3.1 trillion, another rogue sum of N94.6 billion is allocated to the power sector as its capital expenditure. In the past eight years, that is June 1999 to June 2007, the sum of N2 trillion or 16 billion dollars was squandered in the power sector. In the same budget, the award-winner of the best corrupt agency in Nigeria, the Nigeria Police Force, is given a recurrent expenditure of N183.6 billion for the wage and other welfare of its roguish 377,000-man squad. In education, while a paltry sum of N40 billion is provided for its capital development, a huge sum of N184.6 billion is earmarked for the wage and other welfare of its unproductive workforce. In the area of debt services, a colossal sum of N227.8 billion is earmarked for local debt servicing, while the sum of N55.8 billion is for external debt servicing. In the 2008 budget, a sum of N300 billion was allocated for same. Curiously, between 2008 and 2009, about 700 million dollars had been earmarked for external debt “servicing”. Our question is: has Nigeria gone back to highly indebted status? And how much does she owe externally to warrant servicing same with the sum of 700 million dollars in two years?
Our conclusion remains that Nigerian leaders are myopic, primitive, selfish, beastly and visionless. In economics terms, a nation attains a good economic height either through economic growth or through economic development. But in the case of Nigeria, she has neither of the two. All major sources of her revenues are shaky and opportunistic. For instance, apart from the fact that eighty percent of her revenues comes from oil and gas, import duties or taxes constitutes another bulk, and little or nothing is derived from her numerous solid mineral deposits.
Her industry is in comatose due to man-made chronic energy crisis. Her agriculture is acutely subsistent. Nations attain high developments through researches carried out by their universities, but Nigeria’s 95 public and private universities are primitively pursuing wealth. They are no longer centers of learning, but centers of merchandise and cannibalism, where arts of loot, plunder and other social criminality are learned. As over eighty percent of our total revenues are opportunistically derived from oil and gas, so do over eighty percent of them finds their ways to extravagant leisure and foreign bank accounts. A nation that solely relies on lopsided revenue source(s) or punishes (rogue import dues) her citizens for finding an alternative source of human utensils, is corruptly defamed and depressed. That nation is terminally sick and permanently crippled.
The Yar’Adua administration is a dancing masquerade in the corridors of power. And as a dancing masquerade, the administration lacks the knowledge of the A.B.C. of governance, but it is in the know of the A.B.C of entertainment. In the governance of Nigeria, his administration is only entertaining Nigeria and Nigerians. Very unfortunately, Nigeria and Nigerians are in a hurry to see the emergence of creative masquerades and not dancing masquerades. Swiss and French leaders can afford to dance in their palaces and parliaments, but certainly not Nigeria. Nigeria is thousands of miles away from the likes of Malaysia, South Africa, Botsawa, Singapore, South Korea, Philippines, Taiwan, etc.
The Yar’Adua’s administration’s shortcomings are so monumental that they can not be remedied, except through removal, via credible election, of his administration in the next two years during which his tenure would expire.
This press statement, sent to KlinReports, is signed by:
Emeka Umeagbalasi
Chairman
Board of Trustees
International Society for Civil Liberties and The Rule Of Law
Anambra State-Nigeria
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