Recently, the Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Prof. Abubakar Rasheed, was at the Senate of the Federal Republic to defend the 2023 budget of the commission. However, rather than simply defend the about N3 billion budget of the commission, Prof. Rasheed stunned Nigerians when he disclosed that rather than just the N3 billion the commission requested for in the 2022 budget, NUC found an extra N12 billion in its account. He did not understand how. But, that was Nigeria opening up to him in a most disturbing manner.
Prof. Rasheed stated before the Senate that “we had additional money given to us that we didn’t request. I later went to finance to find out. Our budget was always hovering around N3 billion with about N2 billion for personnel, N700-N800 million for capital, and N700 million for overhead. But last year we saw an additional N12 billion given for World Bank projects. We have not touched a kobo and we are not going to touch a kobo of that money because we do not think it is part of what we are to spend. In 2023 we see even more coming to us and it unsettles us. When my capital is N700 million and I see N12 billion under capital, it unsettles me. I don’t know what it is for and it is not something I can spend.”
While efforts are on to explain away the N12billion extra in the NUC budget, and probably shield whoever was responsible for pushing N12b into NUC, Nigerians were again hit with another revelation from the Senate of N206 billion padded into the budget of the most shadowy ministry in Muhammadu Buhari’s government –the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development.
There has been buck-passing between the Minister in charge of the ministry, Sadiya Farouq, and her counterpart at the Federal Ministry of Finance, Zainab Ahmed, over how the N206b developed wings and flew from the supervision of Zainab into Sadiya’s ministry’s budget. Note that Sadiya’s ministry is a specialist in spending money even on intangibles which are covered by the cloak of ‘social development’. That was the main issue when Sen. Ishaku Abbo put the Minister on the spot seeking to get details of the specifics that the N206b will be spent. Sen. Abbo had said to her: “You plan to borrow N206 billion for a project. What are the projects to be implemented and are they captured in the medium-term expenditure framework? If they are, what are the specifics project locations and activities attached to this?”
Sadiya’s response that the N206 billion is “10 fold” the amount requested for in the 2022 budget which was not appropriated then, cast a huge shadow on the intentions of her ministry and Zainab’s Ministry. It simply says that the N206 billion was the outcome of a padded budget. More worrisome is that Minister Sadiya could not provide answers to questions asked by Sen. Abbo on whether the N206 billion was captured in the Medium-term expenditure framework. She also could not give details of the proposed projects and their locations even when she claimed that they were listed in the 2022 budget of the ministry. The minister’s response was a disdainful “we will get the details then send to you on that.”
This is a classic in opaqueness. The fact may be that a heist being pulled between both ministries may have been busted by the Senate. If this is fact, then, it simply points to the fact of the possibility that many such heists may have pulled through since this government, through the National Assembly, instituted a regime of ‘see something, say nothing, flow with the rhythm’. This could also be the practical demonstration of Sen. Ahmed Lawan’s brand of the leadership of the Senate where he enthroned a system that does not question anything that comes to his office from the executive. The Sen. Abbo expository question to Sadiya may, therefore, be the outcome of a very frustrating political experience that saw him expelled for ‘anti-party activities’ against APC. Sen. Abbo had taken a firm stand against the same-faith presidential ticket of his party.
However, whatever irked Abbo, which led him to question Sadiya in that manner, ought to also, hit many more senators and enable them to find their voices even if only for the last few days of their time in the Senate. Doing so will help many of them, alongside their president, to salvage whatever remains of their integrity. Unfortunately, Nigerians are at home with the fact that the present government –legislature and executive- is the worst in the history of their country. Many are in prayers that a Senate such as one led by a Lawan, never happen again. This is much as they fervently pray that a governance model such as that espoused by Buhari and the APC never happens to any country in the world.
In the final analysis, many officials of the present Nigerian government may be taking advantage of the systematic failure of governance in the country, and the institutionalised culture of impunity, to cash out in wait for a post-2023 life. This is accentuated by the decision of the Central Bank of Nigeria to force a naira redesign. The decision is seen as a measure to force officials of government and political actors, who are believed to have stockpiled cash, to return the same into the economy. No government action, therefore, bears testimony to the insinuation that stealing public funds, under the watch of the present administration, has been more unprecedented than the naira redesign policy. It could as well be that past governments since 1999, were learners in budget padding and stealing of public funds when compared to what Nigerians now perceive of the incumbent government.
To many Nigerians, President Buhari’s public declaration of tiredness and eagerness to return to Daura was a bazaar call on the nation’s treasury. It deductively concludes to fact that the harvest is on and those who have access to Nigeria’s funds cannot afford not to help themselves, in whatever way possible, because everyone knows that there won’t be consequences in so far as you stay within ‘the family’.