The revelation by a former senior executive of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation that Nigeria earned $300 billion in five years should attract close scrutiny. Juxtaposed with the near empty treasury that confronts the country today and the crisis of consensus on how to combat corruption, Nigerians should critically uncover how resources were utilised in the recent past in order to chart a better way out of recession.
Indeed, when Tim Okon, a former senior executive with the NNPC, narrated at a public lecture in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, how this country earned “close to $300 billion” from oil between 2010 and 2014, he was only reminding Nigerians of the immediate past when high oil prices, vanishing revenues, waste and corruption were the directive principles of the ruling elite. For years, we have been confronted with the paradox of poverty in the midst of plenty. Olusegun Obasanjo left about $43 billion reserves and $22 billion in the Excess Crude Account when he handed over the presidency to the late Umaru Yar’Adua on May 29, 2007.
These funds had been built up, as Charles Soludo, a former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, and others reminded us, when oil prices ranged from $35 per barrel to a maximum of $65pb. Despite Yar’Adua’s raiding of the ECA, higher oil prices, as recalled by the current CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, facilitated the growth of reserves to a record $62 billion by late 2008.
In the period 2010 to 2014, oil prices hovered around $100pb. According to an analysis by Soludo and others, Nigeria ought to have had reserves of over $100 billion and not less than $60 billion in the ECA. Curiously, while the Obasanjo government also paid off a hefty $12.4 billion even while oil prices were low to exit the crippling external debt overhang of $35.9 billion in 2005/6, thereby reducing external debt to a manageable $3.5 billion, this had risen to $5.6 billion by August 2011.
The Goodluck Jonathan era started in 2010, first as acting President and later confirmed in May of that year. We reject strongly those who argue for collective amnesia and a self-destructive acceptance of corruption and lack of accountability. No country breaks with past retrogression without demanding accountability from past regimes and misbehaviour. Witness the travails of Brazil’s ousted Dilma Rouseff and her predecessor, the once popular Inacio Lula Da Silva; the corruption trials of past South Korean regimes, and asset forfeitures in Zambia, Egypt and the Philippines.
Nigeria is not a failed state: we demand accountability from officials of the Jonathan administration. Apart from the revelations, filed in the courts and via media reports, of the reckless looting of the treasury, it is important to recover as much of public funds that have gone into private hands as possible. The $15 billion targeted from suggested national asset sales pales in comparison to the $17 billion of undeclared oil and gas sales the House of Representatives has decided to probe; the $20 billion that former CBN governor, Lamido Sanusi, alleged was never remitted to the Federation Account by the NNPC, or the unbudgeted $15.1 billion appropriated for arms and allegedly diverted for personal uses and to fund political parties.
To avoid the monumental mistakes of the past that ruined the country, we must confront the past to deter future misconduct. Nigeria’s woes are exposed primarily by collapsing oil prices and our dysfunctional, rentier economy. While other major oil producers (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Algeria, Russia etc) are drawing from their robust reserves and sovereign wealth funds to cushion current adversity, our own SWF is a meagre $2.9 billion, ECA, which was specifically designed for today’s scenario was $2.26 billion in May, while external reserves are precariously low at $25.9 billion.
High oil prices and bumper sales in the period 2010 – 2014 did not reflect substantially in reserves, while ECA, which should have been the main beneficiary, was depleted. Worse; the government borrowed at a furious pace and according to the Debt Management Office website, total debt as of June 30, was $61.44 billion of which $11.26 billion is external debt compared to a combined $17.3 billion in August 2006 and $6.67 billion external debt by June 2013, according to a former Finance Minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
There are other revelations of financial misdeeds that President Muhammadu Buhari’s government must investigate, and bring offenders to book. This requires courage and transparency. The forces ranged against accountability appear strong, but are no match for the resources of the state. There should be intelligent counter-measures to defeat the push-back forces that have deployed threats, violence and sabotage of the economy, legal and judicial ambush, propaganda, ethnicity and religious manipulation to obstruct the anti-corruption war. The cleansing of the NNPC, the major conduit for the industrial-scale theft of public funds, is however being hobbled by Buhari, who has returned an insider to the topmost post. You cannot unravel the misdeeds of the past without a total cleaning out of the NNPC. It is doubtful if a long-time insider can muster the courage to do this.
Buhari should clean up and give the anti-graft agencies, auditors and the National Assembly full backing to uncover where all the oil wealth went to. Moreover, there should be a strong resolve by the government and the parliament that never again would the country fritter away resources and drive itself to the edge of bankruptcy.
