Earlyface

President-elect Muhammadu Buhari
needs N1 trillion naira on May 29, 2015
or within his first 90 days in office.
Clearly, nobody is pretending anymore
that Nigeria is not broke. President
Jonathan’s finance minister/the
coordinating minister of the economy,
Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has given
up any pretense that she has a clue as
to how to rescue Nigeria’s economy
from total collapse. Recently, she
confessed that sourcing where to
borrow money has been more than a
nightmare. In her own words, it has
been causing her hypertension.
And borrowing, she had been doing
with alacrity. The Central Bank of
Nigeria recently announced that the
federal government has over-spent by
N365.3bn between July-Dec 2014. The
minister herself announced that,
"We've borrowed N473bn out of the
N882bn we are allowed to borrow this
year.” So there is no room to borrow a
lot more. And borrowing to pay
workers’ salaries and pay oil marketers
for oil subsidy is as dumb as throwing
bags of money into River Niger.
Meanwhile, Nigeria’s debt profile has
risen to N12 trillion, which is about
three times our annual budget.
Despite the staggering debt ratio to
the size of Nigeria’s economy, Nigeria
still needs to pay workers. And since
President Jonathan and Ngozi Okonjo-
Iweala decided to include only about
N150 billion in the 2015 budget for oil
subsidy, when in the last four years
they have spent an average of N800
billion a year, there is an urgent need
for money to keep the basic elements
of the economy going as the new
government settles in.
The Nigerian workers cannot go for
another three months without pay. The
consequences of that for the new
government will be dire. And the
Nigerian consumers of petrol cannot
go for another three months of long
lines at gas stations and live with fuel
sold at exorbitant prices. And that will
continue until oil marketers are paid
the outstanding debt owed them or
someone figured out how to stop them
from holding Nigeria hostage.
In the last 16 years of the People’s
Democratic Party rule, the political
class squandered an equivalent of
$500 billion US dollars. To go back to
find the books, including those already
reduced to ashes, open them, separate
the scratched off figures from the
original figures and prosecute those
whose fingerprints were on the record
books would be a difficult task. An
easier way would be a mixture of plea-
bargains, fees, surcharges, amnesties
and luxury taxes imposed on these
categories of past and present
officials, all aimed at recovering a
fraction of our commonwealth fleeced
over the last 16 years.
So here are the top ten places
President Jonathan can get N1 trillion
naira.
1.) Go to the 36 governors that served
with Olusegun Obasanjo from 1999 -
2007. Offer them immunity from
prosecution if they will all return N2.5
billion naira each for every four years
in power. Those who spent eight years
in office should return N5 billion each.
After all, most of them were facing
charges totaling over N100 billion
before their files disappeared from the
EFCC. That will give President Buhari
N180 billion naira.
2.) Go to the 36 governors that served
with Umaru Ya’Adua and Goodluck
Jonathan from 2007 - 2015. Offer them
immunity from prosecution if they will
all return N5 billion naira each for
every four years in power. Those who
spent eight years in office should
return N10 billion each. After all, most
of them collected over N2.5 bn each
year as security votes. That will give
President Buhari N360 billion naira.
3.) President Buhari should cancel all
import waivers given to religious
leaders in Nigeria for 2015. Nigeria
lost billions of naira just on the waivers
given to Pastors Adeboye, Oyedepo,
Oritsejafor and their likes under the
Obasanjo-Jonathan administration -
waivers they used to import expensive
cars and luxury goods. Who knows what
the big Imams get in waivers? Right
there, another N50 billion will be
readily available.
4.) A 50% cut in the salaries and
allowances of members of the Nigerian
House of Representative. At $1.4
million each for 360 members, Buhari
can easily get $252 million dollars,
which is over N40 billion. In the
senate, with 109 senators each making
$1.7 million, a 50% cut in their pay
package will give President Buhari over
N14.8 billion naira.
5.) President Buhari should audit the
record books of the government with
oil importers. A good auditing firm will
easily unearth stolen wealth of the
nation. Past audits have shown
substantial stealing on their part. In a
2012 audit conducted by Mr. Aigboje
Aig-Imoukhuede of the subsidy claims
of 2011, discovered that the Federal
Government had overpaid importers
and marketers of petrol by a whopping
N430 billion naira. Of this amount, less
than N30 billion was ever recovered.
Since these so-called cabals are
friends of every government in power,
the president should just ask them to
refund N300 billion and we will let
bygones be bygone.
6.) The president should, as a matter
of urgency, investigate and evaluate all
workers associated with the
importation of fuel into Nigeria. Those
found wanting should be prosecuted
and fired. A good investigation of their
assets and accounts will recover at
least N10 billion. The same thing
should be done with staff of the NNPC,
both those serving and the retired
staff. A good investigation will net over
N10 billion.
7.) Go to all the ministers who served
from 1999-2015. Depending on the
ministry they manned, how long they
manned the ministry and the budget of
each ministry, each minister would be
assessed. A special surcharge of each
minister could net the government
another N50 billion.
8.) The security votes of all state
governors should be cut by 50%. At an
average of N300 million a month, it
runs up to N3.6 billion for a year each.
For the 36 state governors, that
amount is N129.6 billion naira. A 50%
cut will give President Buhari N64.8
billion a year.
9.) The president should close half of
Nigerian missions abroad in a major
scale back and find other countries to
manage Nigeria’s consular affairs. That
will save at least N10 billion.
10.) Along with that, the government
will impose a significant luxury tax on
people who own private jets, luxury
boats and those who own houses worth
over N0.5 billion naira. If you may, just
call it one-time tax to help feed
Nigerian public school children. Let us
see the billionaire that will grumble
about giving a little back to help
educate the disadvantaged. That will
bring in another N100 billion.
Putting the savings together, we have
N1.19 trillion for the President. That
will be enough seed money to give the
incoming government a breathing room
to assess the damage done to the
economy in the last 16 years.
Alternatively, President Buhari could
move in security forces to the Niger
Delta and stop crude oil theft. Since
2009, crude oil thieves have been
increasing the amount of Nigeria’s oil
that they steal. According to the 2012
Ribadu Report, crude oil thieves steal
over 100,000 barrels a day. That is over
$3.6 billion dollars a year. Some
foreign sources put the figure of oil
theft at 250,000 barrels a day. Mrs.
Okonjo-Iweala in 2013 told the
Vanguard newspaper that the loss to
oil theft could be up to $12 billion.
Now, that is over a trillion naira. QED