News
N625billion oil money: Heat on Udom, Okowa, others after Buhari’s confirmation
Emmanuel Udom of Akwa Ibom State, Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta and Godwin Obaseki of Edo, are some of the governors in the Niger Delta areas of the country, whose feet are presently under fire, as stakeholders are demanding explanation of the whereabouts of the N625billion released to them by President Muhammadu Buhari, as refunds of 13 per cent oil derivation backlog.
Governor of Rivers State, had during one of his outings a fortnight ago, exposed how nine states in the oil-bearing states of the federation collected huge sums of money as a result, the President, confirmed the payout on Friday.
Wike, had told his audience how the massive infrastructures being embarked in his state were funded from the N110billion he got as part of the state’s own share from the refund, and had gone ahead to throw a challenge to his colleagues to explain to their citizens, what they did with their own shares.
While some governors were still keeping mute over the issue, Buhari, through his spokesman, Garba Shehu, in a statement on Friday, confirmed that the nine oil-producing states received a total of N625.43 billion 13 per cent oil derivation, subsidy and Subsidy Reinvestment Programme (SURE-P) refunds from the Federation Account between 1999 and 2021.
He said in a statement: ”Data obtained from the Federation Account Department, Office of the Accountant General of the Federation, show that a total of N477.2 billion was released to the nine states as refund of the 13 percent derivation fund on withdrawal from Excess Crude Account (ECA) without deducting derivation from 2004 to 2019, leaving an outstanding balance of N287.04 billion.
“The states also got N64.8 billion as refund of the 13 per cent derivation fund on deductions made by NNPC without payment of derivation to Oil Producing States from 1999 to December.” on in the oil producing states are turning on more heat on their governors over the handling of the N625.4 billion which the Presidency confirmed yesterday as having been released to them between October 2, 2021 and January 11, 2022.
“The nine oil producing states of Abia, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Edo, Imo, Ondo and Rivers are expected to share an outstanding balance of N860.59 billion in further refunds,” Shehu, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, added.
The highest refunds already disbursed went to Akwa Ibom which got N128 billion, Delta N110billion, Rivers N103billion and Bayelsa N92.2 billion.
Vanguard quotes Port Harcourt –based Integrity Friends for Truth and Peace Initiatives (IFTPI), as slamming most governors of the oil producing states for impoverishing their people despite the huge sums of money released to them by the Federal Government, describing the actions as smacking of wickedness.
Echoing the same sentiment, Uyo, Akwa Ibom State based Policy Alert said the state government was not telling the people the whole truth about the money, demanding total accountability of its accruals.
Livingstone Wechie,Executive Director of IFTPI , said it was obvious that most of the governors had not been coming clean with the people on the finances of their states, adding: “The recent Pandora box of the 13 percent derivation payment by the federal government to the oil producing states leaves so much to be desired.
“The fact that the payment of these monies running into hundreds of billions which hitherto became a secret was made public by Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State speaks volumes on how monies meant for the development of the Niger Delta region are mismanaged or diverted.
“What is most appalling and curious is the fact that the figures the states claim to have received from the federal government during the period after the whistle blowing are conflicting with the records released by the federal government. It is important to state that these governors have been very unfair and wicked to their states particularly during this period of economic crisis.
“The federal government should be publishing every kobo paid to any state or local government at all times to show transparency and probity. This is what open governance should be about. This will help checkmate cases of excessive impropriety and malfeasance by public office holders. By this development, the federal government should take further steps to show commitment to fighting fiscal recklessness beyond the usual rhetoric. This is because the instant situation seriously indicts the federal government as aiding fiscal irresponsibility in the management of tax payers’ monies with states.
“This is unarguably expressed in the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) which for years now has not been making remittance to the Federation Account and this administration sees nothing wrong with such lethal fraud. The federal government is therefore challenged to come out clean on the state of fiscal affairs as it concerns the NNPC as part of the anchors for economic rebounding plans to salvage Nigeria from further socio-economic woes.”
Tijah Bolton-Akpan, Executive Director of Policy Alert, a Non Governmental Organisation (NGO), said Akwa Ibom championing financial accountability and good governance, said Emmanuel’s government was being economical with the figures.
Akpan said: “The Akwa Ibom state government is not transparent when it comes to disclosing figures. The people want figures. Figures about the13 percent oil derivation refunds and other revenues are still shrouded in secrecy. The people want transparency and accountability.”
A foremost human rights activist, Kola Edokpayi, accused Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki, of taking for granted the residents of the South South state, for allegedly not being sincere and transparent in the utilisation of funds from oil derivation, subsidy and SURE-P refunds.
Edokpayi, who declared that Obaseki would not be allowed to continually deceive the residents of the state, added that people deserved more than they were receiving from the governor, in terms of infrastructural development, thereby asking him to stop his administration’s “hub” deceit.
But Akwa Ibom State government said contrary to suggestions in some quarters it had over declared amounts received in respect of the 13 percent oil derivation and others.
Information Commissioner Iniobong Ememobong said the state has provided sufficient information backed with figures of the 13 percent refunds and other revenues.
Ememobong, who referred our correspondent to the Commissioner for finance, said, “the State House statement is self-explanatory. There is no ambiguity. The commissioner for finance can provide you with the figures but I can safely tell you that the government has even over declared. What that means is that the federal government is even owing the state.”
In a separate reaction, the Edo State Government said it had been vindicated on the matter as the figures “further validate the figures that we released on November 23, 2022.”
Communication and Orientation Commissioner Chris Nehikhare said in Benin yesterday that accountability would remain the watchword of the administration of Governor Godwin Obaseki and “all resources accruable to Edo State will be prudently and transparently utilised for the good of the majority of Edo people.”
He said the confirmation from the Presidency, “has put to rest the irresponsible pastime of political detractors and unprogressive elements who resorted to conjuring up very ridiculous and absurd figures in their desperation to dubiously market themselves in the political space in this electioneering campaign season.
“For the records, the State House Press Release said: ‘On the 13 per cent derivation fund on deductions made by NNPC without payment of derivation, the nine oil producing states were paid in three installments this year, with the remaining 17 installments outstanding.’
“Recall that on Wednesday, November 23, 2022, the Commissioner for Finance, Budget, Economic Planning and Development, Mr. Joseph Eboigbe, told journalists that Edo State ’s share of the one trillion naira 13 percent derivation refund that is due the oil producing States in Nigeria is N28 billion, and so far, N2.1 billion has been received.
According to Eboigbe, ‘Edo State’s share of that figure was N28 billion. A small figure out of the N1 trillion that was what got to us.
“So we have received three quarterly releases so far, N700 million, N700 Million, N700 million, totaling N2.1billion. That is what has come into the state’s coffers and it is verifiable in the bank, and the office of the Accountant General has the records.
“‘Our share was N28 billion, the net is to be distributed over five years, quarterly, that will be 20 quarterly installment releases, three have come so far, each has been N700 million, N700 million, N700 million and how that money was spent again, we have the records for anybody that wishes to see.’
“We stand by the figures that we released, which have been validated by the State House, and Edo people have no reason to worry as we are committed to finish stronger.”
I will always refer to the encounter I once had with Kenneth Idiodi. He was then the leader of the Rosicrucian Society in Nigeria, otherwise known as Amok. It was a sit-down at Zodiac Hotel Enugu. Then, I was the reporter of The Guardian in the Coal City.
You know the Amok faith bases its philosophy or belief on the law of Retributive Justice – the law of Karma. That is to say, everything you do in life has its rewards or punishment in equal measure – much like the measure you give, the measure you receive.
I don’t know how much this society draws or links this belief from or with the Bible, but I do recall Jesus Christ warning Simon Peter – return your sword to the scabbard – for he who kills by the sword, dies by the sword.
As a child growing up I listened to one of the epics of Oriental Brothers with the lyrics – ogbu mma ga-esi n’mma na, ogba egbe ga-esi n’egbe na ooo! Translated – he who kills by the sword will die by the sword, he who kills by the gun will die by the nozzle of the gun.
Now, here is where this is relevant in present Nigerian reality – the reason I’m putting details of that encounter out publicly once again, having done so previously.
During that encounter, Idiodi used one event in Nigeria to illustrate his point. He told me of a Nigerian leader who commanded the troop that carried out the Asaba massacre in the heat of the Nigerian civil war – an episode, said to have claimed over 2,000 able-bodied men who had come out to welcome the Nigerian soldiers with songs and dances only to fall in the hail of bullets that descended on them like rainstorms – was not spared by fate.
That commander was to meet his own death in a hail of bullets even as a Head of State. He never mentioned the name of the military top brass. But I used my tongue to count my teeth to come to the answer. You could also do same – use your tongue.
Now, how does this relate? You may have followed the outing of General Yakubu Gowon at the Bola Ahmed Tinubu International Conference Centre, Abuja, where he presented his autobiography titled: My Life of Duty and Allegiance, that contained what seemed his memoir on the Nigerian civil war, which he prosecuted as Head of State.
I’m sure you must have been observing the debate therefrom that event. Now, I’m not so much enamoured of the debate as I’m of the nuances surrounding that unfortunate episode and the role of Gowon in it, given my takeaway from that Idiodi encounter some two decades ago.
Does Gowon, now a nonagenarian really believe that presenting a pious, if not saintly account of himself to the world as snippets of his book, which I picked up here and there suggests, truly suffices for the atrocities of that period?
Take the Asaba massacre for example. Was that the handiwork of Odumegwu Ojukwu, the Biafran leader, whom the former Head of State seems to blame for everything that went wrong. Was he also the one that commanded that mass slaughtering of innocent men?
Under your nose as Head of State, you watched citizens slaughtered mercilessly like infested herds in the streets – you watched young girls corralled into leprosy colonies and wantonly raped before being wasted – you watched as train coaches bearing people fleeing the scene were stopped and their human cargoes thrown alive into River Benue like rotten goods for fishes to feast on – you watched all these and didn’t lift a finger.
Then as Head of State, you not only supervised but watched millions of children with distended stomachs, tiny feet, glazy eyes, heavy heads on ropelike necks, practically begging for death to come quickly and save them from further punishment.
You supervised and watched the cataclysmic eruptions from the blitzkrieg on churches, markets and hospitals – all to keep Nigeria together. In your mind the brutal and merciless butchery of innocent people who were not soldiers and had nothing to do with the war could be explained away just like that?
O! It was Ojukwu that caused it. Ojukwu was the one who released the bombs, caused the blockades that led to the kwashiorkor that killed millions or other atrocities thereof? What a pity!
Now, I return to Idiodi. How else could anyone interpret today’s Nigeria without introducing the law of retributive justice that the Amok leader spoke of? How do you fault the link of the commander who massacred over 2,000 souls dying by the barrel of the same gun, even as Head of State?
How could anyone fail to relate what is happening to our Gowon today with the past? This is a Geneal that wakes up to see hundreds of his brothers and sisters being buried in mass graves as was done during the onslaught he supervised against another people and he still thinks it has nothing to do with him?
Now, the story you told at that event in Abuja on Tuesday, is not new. You simply repeated yourself. My interpretation of that event is that you’re a man undergoing daily torture. You wouldn’t be a human being otherwise, given what is before you, which didn’t start today.
You’re probably trying to escape your fate by appealing to public sympathy. How helpful could that be in the face of the clear evidence of your culpability in the deliberate wasting of more than three million souls? Nobody would believe you.
Yes! They could humour you. But that’s the best anyone could do for you. I hear money rained like a fountain and that you left the scene with billions of naira in your kitty. At 90? Haba General!
Now, here is the thing General. None of these would help.
None would work. You have tried prayers. But you forget that the prayer of sinner is an abomination and a reproach before God, unless he repents. You have also written the book. Surely, this too would end up in the trashcan of history – meaningless piece of conjectures, propaganda, half-truths and outright lies – perhaps!
But, why don’t you try the one thing you have been running away from, for more than five decades – go on your knees in total supplication and surrender, repentance and penance – then rise, call all Nigerians and empty yourself with the truth.
Thereafter openly apologise to the millions of souls whose tormenting wailing you probably hear every day during your disturbed sleep and in your quiet moments, but choose to suppress with these baby tales. Ask them for forgiveness, genuinely and see. There may lie the answer you seek.
Try that and see if it wouldn’t be a more efficacious cure for this decades-old wound than this Ojukwu-bashing and those wasted prayer sessions. You might not only have atoned for the past, but saved the future. May God guide you.
My name is Sunny Igboanugo, I’m The Tiny Voice
“Now that the court has ruled against it, we are sure that, in the coming days, we will witness a mass exodus from the ruling party,” were the words with which the African Democratic Congress (ADC) welcomed Wednesday’s ruling of the Federal High Court, Abuja reversing the deadline for party primaries, among others.
Bolaji Abdullahi, spokesman, who conveyed the party’s excitement over the development, said it viewed the ruling as vindication of its objections to key aspects of the electoral body’s guidelines at the time they were issued.
Recalling its specific objections to the strict timelines on membership registration as well as the conduct of party primaries, the statement, said: “The decision of the court on these issues, including those that directly contradict the constitution, is therefore a welcome vindication of our position.”
Stressing that the ruling, which removed the impediment placed by the guidelines on politicians who wished to seek alternative platforms to contest elections, was a positive development that would promote freedom of association, the statement, added: “We believed at the time that that particular restriction was designed to prevent people from leaving the ruling party, APC.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned Cuba on Thursday that the United States was laser-focused on changing the communist system, after the island was stunned by a US indictment of its former president Raul Castro.
The US military announced that the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier and its escort warships had entered the Caribbean, although President Donald Trump, asked if the deployment was meant to intimidate Cuba, said, “No, not at all.”
Rubio, a Cuban American and vociferous opponent of Havana’s government, described the island 90 miles (145 kilometres) from the US shore as a “failed state” as it suffers a major economic crisis.
“Their economic system doesn’t work. It’s broken, and you can’t fix it with the current political system that’s in place. What they’ve gotten used to all these years is just buying time and waiting us out.
“They’re not going to be able to wait us out or buy time. We’re very serious. We’re very focused. The US preference is always a diplomatic solution, but President Donald Trump has other options at his disposal.”
Stating that Cuba had tentatively accepted an offer by the United States of $100 million in aid in return for reforms, he said it was unclear if the United States would accept Cuba’s terms, as Washington insists on circumventing the military-backed conglomerate GAESA, which dominates the island’s economy.
Rubio said Thursday that the GAESA chief’s Florida-based sister, Adys Lastres Morera, had been arrested and was being held by US immigration authorities, adding in an X post: “Managing real estate assets…while also aiding Havana’s communist regime, until I terminated her permanent resident status.”
The charges against Raul Castro — younger brother of Fidel Castro, the late iconic US nemesis who led Cuba’s communist revolution that culminated in 1959 — stem from the deadly downing of two civilian planes manned by anti-Castro pilots in 1996.
Cuban authorities called on citizens to protest the “despicable” indictment, with the official newspaper Granma urging Cubans to gather outside the US embassy in Havana on Friday at 7:30 am (1230 GMT).
“This isn’t really an accusation, something from more than 30 years ago, but rather a public attack on a public figure,” Fabian Fernandez, a 30-year-old accountant, told AFP in Havana.
Trump in January seized on a US domestic indictment of Venezuela’s leftist leader Nicolas Maduro to send in US forces to depose him and take him into custody.
“The idea is to say, we can do to you what we did to Nicolas Maduro,” said Christopher Sabatini, senior fellow for Latin America at Chatham House.
The Maduro operation led to the end of free oil from Venezuela to Cuba, which relied on its ally for nearly half its needs.
Cubans have suffered power outages of up to 20 hours a day and taps running dry.
Runaway inflation has caused the price of basic goods to soar and mountains of trash have piled up on the streets of Havana.
In addition to murder, Castro has been charged with conspiracy to kill Americans and destruction of aircraft.
The Cuban government called the 1996 shootdown was “legitimate self-defense” against an airspace violation.
China and Russia both criticized Trump’s steps on Cuba, which come as he tries to end an unpopular war he started with Israel against Iran.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun told a press briefing that Washington “should stop brandishing the sanctions stick and the judicial stick against Cuba and stop threatening force at every turn.”
In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “We believe that under no circumstances should such methods — which border on violence — be used against either former or current heads of state.
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