Corruption did not begin with President Goodluck Jonathan’s
government. But, at the current rate, corruption would kill Nigeria on
his watch. By a number of credible accounts, more than $500 billion (N80
trillion) has been stolen from Nigeria’s public coffers since
independence in 1960. We don’t know exactly how much of this has been
stolen under Jonathan. With record heists reported almost daily from the
oil sector to pension funds, it is beyond a doubt that corruption is
plumbing new, frightening depths under this government.
And the crooks are roaming free. Not only that, they are enjoying
executive protection and daring the public to do its worst. This is the
climate under which the world has witnessed the bizarre drama following
the submission of the report of the Nuhu Ribadu-led Petroleum Revenue
Special Task Force last week.
While Ribadu was submitting the report to President Jonathan, two
members of the task force, who had been offered jobs in the same NNPC
that they were supposed to be investigating and who contributed nothing
to the panel’s work, were allowed to discredit the report without
anybody reprimanding them. In the particular case of one of them, Steve
Oronsaye, it is baffling that he is never in short of supply of juicy
appointments from every government in power. He is not only on the board
of the NNPC, he is also on the board of the Central Bank of Nigeria. A
few days after the Ribadu panel submitted its report, the president’s
aide, Doyin Okupe, dismissed it as shoddy and “impossible to implement”.
And now there’s a rash of spin about everything other than about when
the criminals will be brought to justice. How long will this nonsense
continue?
President Jonathan has often spoken of his administration’s resolve
to crush oil thieves or drive all economic saboteurs in the country into
another planet. While inaugurating new service chiefs last month, he
gave them a marching order to crush oil thieves. For the umpteenth time,
last week, at the launch of Reforming the Unreformable, a book
authored by finance minister Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the president
swore that all those found culpable in the fuel subsidy scam would be
severely punished after they had been forced to refund the funds they
illegally collected. 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.
Indeed, it’s under the Jonathan regime that the country has witnessed
the exposure of looted trillions of naira. Billions – like the N100
billion stolen by a syndicate that specialises in stealing pensions --
have become relatively insignificant! The source of looted trillions, of
course, is the nation’s oil wealth -- oil contributes more than 80 per
cent of government’s revenue.
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. The
NNPC disclosed that 1.7 million barrels of crude oil were lost between
May and June 2009 alone. 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.
The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) and
the NNPC have demonstrated gross incompetence in tackling these oil
thieves in spite of the huge resources at their disposal, apparently
because their officials also collude with them. The engagement of
repentant militant Government Ekpemupolo’s (Tompolo) company to secure
our maritime coast has equally been a pipe dream. The nation continues
to experience huge revenue loss through oil theft and various forms of
criminality at sea. Two vessels believed to have been used in this
criminal act recently are said to be owned by some high-ranking PDP
members and top officials of the NNPC who were allegedly accused of
stealing about 6.5 million barrels of Nigeria’s crude oil.
More often than not, the Nigerian judiciary has aided and abetted
this crime through endless litigations. That is why Nigerians do not
believe any of the indicted would be brought to justice. Recently, the
EFCC arraigned 13 suspects in connection with the fuel subsidy scam.
These suspects, eight individuals and five companies, were accused of
allegedly receiving N1,265,204, 348.20 and N76, 267,387.47 purportedly
as subsidy for the supply of 17, 989,540.00 litres and 20,021,873 litres
respectively of PMS. More of the suspects are expected to have their
day in court. The question still: where is the justice? How long will
this nonsense continue?
President Jonathan should have facts and security reports on these
economic saboteurs more than any other Nigerian. Pandering to sentiments
and schmoozing with them will only continue to do damage to the already
battered image of his administration. He has to act fast before
corruption kills the country on his watch. It is not enough to vow, at
every forum, to eliminate corruption. It requires a few days of
surveillance to be carried out in the swamps of Rivers, Cross River,
Bayelsa, Ondo and AkwaIbom states, where these oil thieves load crude
oil or petroleum products into large barges, and in the labyrinthine
creeks of the Niger Delta, directly from oil field production wellheads
or from NNPC jetties at Okrika, Effurum, Calabar, Escravos, Atlas Cove
(Lagos), and deliberate puncturing of crude oil or petroleum product
pipelines across the country’s hinterland.
The oil thieves are not spirits. Report after report, panel after
panel, and committee after committee have named them, indicted them and
turned them in. The Ribadu report has done no less. Yet Jonathan’s
government keeps vowing that heads would roll without lifting a finger.
If the government continues playing its favourite game of obfuscation -
its promise of action not worth a kobo in the piggybank - it is only a
matter of time before the government would collapse under the weight of
its own malfeasance.
In addressing a gathering of the Communist Party in China a few days
ago, the outgoing Chinese president, Hu Jin Tao,told them that if
corruption was not tackled, both their party and the nation together
with it would be sunk.That is the stuff that great leaders are made of.
The writing is on the wall.
Leadership
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