I and PDP stopped corruption. Please vote for me next year because I and PDP have stopped corruption in Nigeria. Here is how someone has explained what corruption means: “Corruption is efforts to secure wealth or power through illegal means; private gain at public expense; or a misuse of public power for private benefit”. I have my own explanation: “There is no corruption but mere stealing in Nigeria”. Yes, that’s me. I said it. And I mean it! And remember before that I said “I don’t give a damn” about declaring my assets! Yes, why should I declare my assets? Why should I say that there is corruption in Nigeria when I know that there is not. Okay, you don’t believe me, let’s look at the following highlights together; remember these are only highlights; there are lots more that have not yet been uncovered: 2014: More revelations by the House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts indicated on Thursday that the Office of the Head of Service of the Federation could not account for N35bn it collected from the Service Wide Vote within nine years. (Punch article) 2013: PDP’s NNPC did not remit $20bn to the coffers of the federation. $20bn equals _____ in Naira. The Deputy Director in charge of Reforms in the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, Mr. John Magbadelo, Thursday stated that Nigeria had lost over $400 billion to corruption between 1966 and 1999. Last month, Jonathan pardoned his former boss, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, the ex-governor of oil-rich Bayelsa state who was convicted for corruption and money laundering in 2007. The pardon, which allows Alamieyeseigha to return to politics, “makes a joke of all the war against corruption,” said Nuhu Ribadu, 52, who headed the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission when its probe of the governor led to his conviction. Alamieyeseigha pleaded guilty and returned about 43 billion naira ($270 million) of embezzled funds to state coffers, Ribadu said in an interview. The U.S. Embassy in Abuja, the capital, called the decision “a setback in the fight against corruption.” (Bloomberg News). Oby Ezekwesili, a former World bank Director, stirred up the hornet’s nest by declaring that the combined administrations of Musa Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan misappropriated literally billions of dollars. She pointed out that Obasanjo left $45 billion in Nigeria’s foreign reserve account and another $22 billion in the excess crude account when he left office in 2007; being direct savings from increased earnings from oil under his administration. These savings have completely disappeared without trace. Where did these monies go? 2012: Report by the US Government put the amount stolen in the “period under review” to 1.067 trillion naira ($6.8 billion); the period under review was 2011 – 2012. $6.8bn - the amount a fuel subsidy scam has cost Nigeria over the last two years - a parliamentary report said in April (BBC News Africa Report). $29bn - the amount lost by the treasury in the last decade (2002 – 2012) in an apparent gas price-fixing scam - leaked Petroleum Revenue Special Task Force report in October (BBC News Africa Report). $6bn - the amount the treasury loses a year because of oil theft - leaked Petroleum Revenue Special Task Force report in October (BBC News Africa Report). Need we recount a few other cases of larceny on a grand scale? Nigerians are aware that the country loses 600,000 barrels of crude oil daily to illegal bunkering. At the current price of N112.52 per barrel, a whopping sum of N 3.7 trillion ($24.64 billion) is lost annually. (allfrica article) The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) has reported that West African pirates have been increasingly attacking ships further and further from shore. They illegally siphon US$3 billion yearly worth of crude oil and refined petroleum products between 100,000 and 130,000 barrels a day with an international market value of about US$3billion; the equivalent of a large 95,000 metric ton crude oil tanker is being stolen from Nigeria without punishment. The situation of oil theft has grown worse with allegations of complicity by members of the ruling party and others close to the corridors of power who have been indicted by various administrative panel reports. This illegal activity is being carried out without a licence, authorisation or valid documents and in violation of the Nigerian maritime laws and guidelines. Not a few people snorted when the minister of trade and investment, Dr. Olusegun Aganga, blurted that some documents from his ministry were forged to perpetrate illegal oil theft. According to him, the country loses N775 billion annually over non-metering of oil wells and inaccurate ship-to shore loading and offloading of vessels. In the third quarter of this year, documents were forged leading to the export of 24million barrels of oil valued at $1.6billion. (ALLFRICA article) Nigeria Lost U.S.$400 Billion Oil Revenue to Theft – Ezekwesili (Daily Trust AND allfrica article). $31 Billion Stolen Under President Jonathan of Nigeria - Punch. More recently, David Cameron, Prime-Minister of Great Britain, is reported to have asked President Goodluck Jonathan what happened to the $100 billion dollars Nigeria made from oil and gas exports in 2012, insisting that “lack of accountability and transparency is a big problem in Nigerian oil and gas industry.” (Vanguard article). 2011: He was obviously referring to those who allegedly stole N2.6 trillon in the name of fuel subsidy funds last year. The Ribadu report, by the way, revealed that $16 billion or N2.8 trillion had been separately stolen in the oil sector. (allfrica article) A task force commissioned by the petroleum ministry to look into graft found that Nigeria LNG, owned by state-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corp., Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA), Total SA (FP) and Eni SpA (ENI), may have underpaid the country for gas before exporting it to international markets. That cost Nigeria about $29 billion in the decade through 2011, according to the report. (Bloomberg News) Okay, Goodluck Jonathan and PDP wants you to vote for him in 2015 because he has combated corruption. Please before you do that check this out: The conservative total of stolen, mismanaged, unaccounted for and/or re-stolen Nigeria public funds by PDP between 1999 – 2014 = US$145.6bn ($146 BILLION). The key phrase here is “conservative estimate”. And this is only from publicly available sources. It is much more than that when you factor in the ones that are hush-hush and hidden from public view. Contrast Jonathan with Buhari. Buhari is the cleanest candidate that is running for Nigerian presidency in 2015. His credentials and character in this regard are impeccable despite the attempts of the “swiftboaters” (thanks to Barrister Jude Menes for explaining this phenomenon in Buhari’s context) to smear him in this regard. I repeat my stand: without fighting corruption, Nigeria is going nowhere. Imagine what US$10bn, $20bn, $100bn, $150bn will do for healthcare, jobs, good infrastructure for Nigeria. These monies are sitting in private pockets as I write and these same people want to come back to power? Really? I end by urging you to vote out these thieves. As long as they are in power, this will continue. Finally Listen to Buhari himself: Those who are afraid of the change we seek are the people destroying our country and stunting its progress. They are the same people who spent four years in power without improving our electricity by a single megawatt, the same people who spent four years downgrading high-level corruption to common stealing, the same people who spent four years watching over terrorists desecrating our territorial sovereignty… (Muhammadu Buhari, December21, 2014).
Posted on: Sun, 28 Dec 2014 10:33:08 +0000
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