It was with great amusement that
I received news that the minister for propaganda, the rightly and prophetically
named Lai Mohammed, was planning on releasing a new looters list.
The nation was witness to the
flop of the pathetic looters lists he had earlier drawn up which read more like
a list of noise makers drawn up by a primary school class captain who wanted to
implicate his enemies.
After having been shamed at home
and abroad for its one sided and fallacious list, the Buhari administration
wants to redeem itself by releasing a third list, which from the look of
things, will go into infamy like its two elder brothers.
The funniest thing is that both
Lai Mohammed and President Buhari’s spokesman, Garba Shehu, had condemned the
release of a looters list by the pioneer Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission Chairman, Nuhu Ribadu in 2007.
It is very obvious that they have
no moral compass. Their loyalties are only to their bellies. If not, why
condemn a looters list released by Nuhu Ribadu and commend a looters list
released by the Buhari administration?
In any case, Nigerians and the
international community may find the list below to be a more credible list and
I call on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and the Independent
Corrupt Practices Commission to investigate, interrogate and prosecute those
contained therein, especially as I have produced details and named names, dates
and amounts involved which stand at over $30 billion.
Please note that this is not an
exhaustive list. There are many others, including a South South ex-Governor who
is close to President Buhari, whose security vote was incredibly substantial, but
unless I have hard documentary evidence or eyewitness testimony, I have avoided
listing such persons.
Muhammadu Buhari and His Cronies: On several occasions during the
2015 election campaign, then candidate Muhammadu Buhari said he did not know
what fuel subsidy is and accused the Jonathan administration of scamming
Nigerians through the scheme.
Again, on December 28, 2015,
President Buhari said he was ending fuel subsidy. On May 12, 2016 the minister
of state for petroleum, Ibe Kachikwu, said subsidy had been removed. The price
of petrol was increased on that basis to ₦145. Then on December 15, 2016, Vice
President Osinbajo said there was no more fuel subsidy in Nigeria.
In the 2016 and 2017 budgets, the
National Assembly made no provision for appropriations for fuel subsidy.
On Friday, December 22, 2017, the
Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation,
Maikanti Baru, said that President Buhari had authorized him to make fuel
subsidy payments which he tried to hide by using the ingenious term ‘under
recovery’.
On April 6, 2018, the minister of
state for petroleum resources, Mr. Ibe Kachikwu revealed that ₦1.4 trillion was
being spent annually on fuel subsidy payments by the Buhari administration.
Section 162 (1) of the
Constitution provides that:
“(1) The Federation shall
maintain a special account to be called “the Federation Account” into which
shall be paid all revenues collected by the Government of the Federation,
except the proceeds from the personal income tax of the personnel of the armed
forces of the Federation, the Nigeria Police Force, the Ministry or department
of government charged with responsibility for Foreign Affairs and the residents
of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.”
Moreover, there is a Treasury
Single Account policy in operation.
If all funds belonging to the
federation are remitted into the Federation Account, if all Ministries,
Departments and Agencies are bound by the TSA, how is it possible for President
Buhari to unconstitutionally instruct the GMD of the NNPC to use funds which
were not appropriated by the National Assembly to pay for a scheme that was
scrapped?
This amount is more than twice
what was spent by the Jonathan administration on fuel subsidy annually, yet
under that government, fuel sold for ₦87 per liter which is half the price it
is being sold for today at ₦145 per liter.
Not only should fuel subsidy not
be paid, because the minister of petroleum, who also happens to be the
President, said he had ended that policy, but even if it is being paid, it
should not be at a higher amount than was paid under Jonathan.
Did the population of Nigeria
double overnight? Did Nigerians become so rich in a depressed economy that they
started consuming twice the amount of subsidy that they consumed a mere 3 years
ago even when they are paying more for the product?
The inescapable conclusion is
that the ₦1.4 trillion now being paid annually for fuel subsidy, according to
Ibe Kachikwu, is money that is going largely to private pockets.
Rochas Okorocha: In a secret memo from a top diplomat and found on
Wikileaks with the Canonical ID:06ABUJA483_a, Rochas Okorocha was identified as
an embezzler of government funds. To quote the memo word for word, the top
diplomat said “The head of the National Airport Management Authority (NAMA),
Rochas Okorocha, was caught and dismissed for embezzling about $1 million
through an inflated contract.”
Malam Nasir El-Rufai: In a secret memo from a top diplomat and
found on Wikileaks with the Canonical ID:06ABUJA483_a, an American diplomat
gave eyewitness testimony of how Nasir El-Rufai had gone from extreme poverty
to extreme wealth almost overnight. To quote the memo word for word, the top US
diplomat said “El-Rufai is at the CENTER of the corruption allegations.
Well-known to PolCouns eight year ago, when he was homeless and seeking a loan
to import a taxi from the UK, El-Rufai is said to have recently purchased seven
upscale properties in a posh Abuja neighborhood.”
On June 20, 2017, saharareporters.com,
a website that Malam Nasir El-Rufai himself had previously praised for its
credibility, published government documents stating that Malam El-Rufai had
awarded heavily over invoiced contracts to his wives, children and family
members to the tune of ₦3 billion.
NNPC/Maikanti Baru: On August 30, 2017, the minister of State for
Petroleum Resources, Mr. Ibe Kachikwu, revealed in a memo to President Buhari,
which ended up getting leaked, that despite the legal requirement for all
contracts above $20 million to be approved by the board of the Nigerian
National Petroleum Corporation, the Group Managing Director of the NNPC,
Maikanti Baru, has unilaterally awarded sundry contracts without due process to
the tune of $24.5 billion.
No independent inquiry was
conducted into these allegations. The NNPC, instead, issued a statement
claiming that the contracts were approved by President Buhari.
However, the dates the contracts
were approved coincided with the dates the President was in London and had officially
handed over to Vice President Osinbajo.
When the media pointed this out,
the NNPC contradicted itself and said that Vice President Yemi Osinbajo
approved the contracts.
However, Vice President Osinbajo
released a statement on October 13, 2017, denying that he approved the
contracts.
The truth about what happened to
the almost $25 billion will not come to light now while Buhari is still in
power.
Alhaji Abba Kyari: On September 20, 2016, saharareporters.com
published a report that Malam Abba Kyari, the Chief of Staff to the President,
had received a bribe of ₦500 million from the South African telecom giant, MTN,
to help influence the reduction of the $5.2 billion fine imposed on them.
Given that the $5.2 billion fine
was eventually and significantly reduced on December 3, 2016, just two months
after the reports of the alleged bribe surfaced, a lot of credence has been
given to those reports.
This is especially so as the
former acting Director General of the National Intelligence Agency, ambassador
Mohammed Dauda, in a sworn testimony to the House of Representatives Committee
on National Security and Intelligence, revealed that President Buhari’s kitchen
cabinet comprising of Abba Kyari and former Secretary to the Government of the
Federation, Babagana Kingibe, had pressured him to share the $44 million Ikoyi
millions.
After giving his sworn evidence,
ambassador Dauda was dismissed and has now gone underground.
Abubakar Malami: Currently the Attorney General of the Federation
and Minister for Justice. On April 8, 2018, investigative journalism website,
The Cable, alleged that they have documents proving that AGF Malami
“spuriously” hired lawyers at a cost to the Federal Government of ₦6 billion,
to handle the repatriation of looted Abacha funds of $321 million (it would
seem that contrary to President Buhari’s publicly stated position, Abacha did
loot).
It was discovered that the
immediate past Attorney-General of the Federation, Mohammed Bello Adoke, had
finished up the matter and there was no need for the engagement of the lawyers
in the first place.
Incidentally, the lawyers was alleged
to have been hired by Malami (Oladipo Okpeseyi, a senior advocate of Nigeria
(SAN), and Temitope Adebayo) had both worked for President Muhammadu Buhari’s
party, Congress for Progressive Change, and also worked for the All Progressive
Congress. Interestingly, the current AGF, Abubakar Malami, was the legal
adviser of CPC.
Adebayo Shittu: Current minister of communications. On March 12,
2018, Mr. Shittu’s Special Assistant on media, Victor Oluwadamilare, revealed
in a letter leaked to the media, that whereas Mr. Shittu was struggling
financially prior to joining President Buhari’s cabinet, according to the said
aide, he has almost overnight become fabulously wealthy to the point where he
has, according to his own aide, “investments that run into hundreds of millions
of naira in your less than three years in the office.”
Mr. Shittu was revealed by his
aide to have suddenly come into possession of 12 luxury houses in Abuja, Lagos,
and Ibadan and recently bought a brand new ₦93 million printing press. This is
in addition to 25 luxury vehicles.
The total value of these
largesses the minister has suddenly accrued, according to his aide, is
conservatively estimated at ₦2 billion.
Babatunde Raji Fashola: Current minister of power, works and
housing. It was established and even admitted by Fashola himself that he spent
₦78 million on his personal website.
Now, government funds should not
be spent on a personal website. But even at that, the amount is grossly over
bloated. ₦78 million was equivalent to half a million dollars at the time of
the transaction.
Moreover, Info Access Plus, the
company that got the said contract, released a statement stating that it
received only ₦10 million from the Lagos state government for the website
contract. The company further revealed that the website, www.fashola.com, already
existed and the contract was only for ‘upgrading’ the site.
Also, substantiated allegations
were made against Mr. Fashola with documented evidence indicating that he
awarded a ₦139 million naira contract for the drilling of two boreholes at the
government secretariat. This amount was equivalent to $900,000 at the time the
contract was awarded. It goes without saying that two bore holes can be sunk
for less than 5% of the amount expended by Fashola.
Rauf Aregbesola: It was reported in several investigating journals
that the contract to provide schools in Osun state with the tablet nick named
‘Opon Imo’ was awarded to a firm linked to Governor Rauf Aregbesola‘s son at an
inflated price of ₦8.6 billion. This allegation was also made in a petition by
the Civil Societies Coalition for the Emancipation of Osun state (CSCEOS).
The introduction of the so called
knowledge tablet was meant to boost education in Osun State. The curious thing
however is that in the latest rankings from WAEC, only 46.77 per cent of Osun
State students got five credits and above in the 2017 West African Senior
School Certificate Examination. In fact, Osun State, which used to be one of
the top performing states in education was outperformed by five northern
states, including Borno, to emerge 24th position nationwide out of 36 states.
In 2016, the state fared even
worse, ranking 29th among the 36 states and the FCT in 2016’s West African
Senior School Certificate Examination results released by WAEC.
Usman Yusuf: Executive Secretary of the National Health Insurance
Scheme. Suspended by the minister of health for allegedly misappropriating
approximately ₦1 billion. A probe panel was set up by the minister of health,
Isaac Adewole. Mr. Adewole found the evidence against Mr: Yusuf compelling
enough to warrant his suspension.
According to the investigative
journalism website, premiumtimesng.com, their editors had cited the documents
presented as evidence against Mr. Yusuf and their conclusion is that “cases of
misconduct was clearly established against Mr. Yusuf.”
Again, Premium Times report that
their investigations revealed that Mr. Yusuf used his closeness to President
Buhari to countermand the minister of health’s decision and was reinstated to
his position.
According to Punch Newspapers
“When our correspondent reached out to him to respond to the allegations
levelled against him last December, Yusuf had said, “F*ck you, and f*ck the
minister”-This is the type of character that has been reinstated by President
Buhari to Head the NHIS after being suspended for a ₦1 billion scam.
Lai Mohammed: Currently serving as minister of information, Mr. Lai
Mohammed used his office to intimidate a parastatal under his ministry to
engage in unethical practices.
Documentary evidence reveal that
Mr. Mohammed was alleged to have begged his subordinates at the National
Broadcasting Commission (NBC) for a ‘loan’ of ₦13 million to enable him travel
to China, an act which is against civil service rules and against the rules of
public decency.
A civil society organization,
Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) describes Mr. Lai
Mohammed’s action as “a subtle attempt at blackmail and a sinister plot to seek
to extort N13 million from one of the agencies under his ministerial
supervision. The action is absolutely against President Muhammadu Buhari’s
current anti-graft disposition which is signposted in the bringing into being
of the Treasury Single Account (TSA).”
How many other parastatals,
departments and agencies has Lai Mohammed gone a-begging and for which he has
not been exposed. Yet this is the same man that goes about parroting lies, half
truths and innuendo against others.
EFCC: The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission is currently
headed by Ibrahim Magu, a man whose confirmation as Chairman of the EFCC was
denied down by the Senate after a negative report on him by the Department of
State Security.
Under his tenure, Nigeria made
her worst ever retrogression in the Transparency International annual
Corruption Perception Index, moving 12 places backward from 136 to 148.
Also, the Egmont Group of
Financial Intelligence Units, which is the officially recognized global body
that fosters cooperation in the fight against money laundering and financing of
terrorism, has suspended Nigeria because Mr. Magu’s EFCC has, in their opinion,
continued to leak financial information passed on to them to the media. This
information they leak is overwhelmingly information related to opponents of the
Buhari administration.
When they suspended Nigeria, the
Egmont Group gave as reason the “repeated failures on the part of the FIU,
(Nigeria) to address concerns regarding the protection of confidential
information.”
At various occasions between 2017
and 2018, Mr. Magu publicly declared that the EFCC had recovered looted funds
totaling ₦739 billion.
However, in a leaked memo to Mr.
Magu by the minister for finance, Kemi Adeosun, the minister asserted that
contrary to the public claims by Mr. Magu that ₦739 billion has been recovered
by the EFCC, only ₦91.3 billion had been deposited by the commission into the
treasury. She then demanded to know the whereabouts of the balance of the
monies.
Between what Mr. Magu claims to
have recovered and what the EFCC paid in, there is a difference of ₦647.7
billion.
Shehu Sani, a Senator elected
under the banner of the ruling APC has alleged that the looted funds recovered
by this administration has been ‘relooted’.
Conclusion
Unfortunately, rather than accept
the truth that there is an unprecedented corruption, ineptitude and nepotism in
their government, the Buhari administration continues to promote the propaganda
that our current economic malaise is as a result of the mismanagement of
Nigeria’s economy by the Jonathan administration.
However, even members of
President Buhari’s cabinet have testified publicly to the fact that the
President, his vice and their fallacious minister of information have falsely
accused the previous government.
Speaking on February 1, 2018 at a
civil society engagement workshop on the Power Sector Recovery Programme in
Abuja, the minister of works, power and housing, Babatunde Fashola, in trying
to defend himself from allegations of ineptitude as regards the epileptic power
supply in the country, ended up vindicating both Dr. Goodluck Jonathan and the
PDP, albeit unintentionally.
At that event, Mr. Fashola said:
“We hear all our so-called
experts who say (non-availability of) power is why the economy of Nigeria is
not growing. That is not factual and it is not correct. At the time when we had
less power in 2013 and 2014, THE ECONOMY OF THIS COUNTRY WAS GROWING AT SEVEN
PER CENT PER ANNUM. We had less power then than we have now, but the economy
was growing.”
Nigerians can now see that Mr.
Fashola, in a Freudian slip, was made by God, to expose the truth that his
boss, his party and his colleagues have been trying to suppress for the past
three years, namely that former President Jonathan developed and grew Nigeria’s
economy at an unprecedented and consistent growth rate of over 6% per annum and
handed over a thriving economy that was projected by CNNMoney to be the third
fastest growing economy in the world when Dr. Jonathan handed over power to
President Buhari.
Unfortunately, due to the
ineptitude of the Buhari administration, a booming economy became an economy in
recession in just one year under the All Progressive Congress.
In less than three years,
President Buhari has borrowed more money than the PDP borrowed in the last
sixteen years. Yet the economy has gotten worse! Buhari is 75 years old. Who do
you think will pay for these loans he is taking?
And to those who think Buhari’s
APC is better than the PDP should consider this fact. The Southwest states were
the top states in education until the APC took over there. The
Southeast/South-south states were educationally disadvantaged until PDP took
over. Now they are on top. Do not take my word for it. Google WAEC state by
state rankings for the last 5 years yourself.
The corruption by the APC
government is so pervasive that it has not only affected the economy, but it
has affected knowledge acquisition.
Culled: TheCable
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You might be right with the list because, the same APC people are the ones that ran from PDP now to APC. APC is the worst government I've ever seen in the history of Nigeria.
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