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‘Missing’ N89 trillion: Presidency speaks *Says scammers at work
“If the Federal Government can find N89 trillion, it can pay off all its debt, both foreign and local currency and all state government debts and still have over N10 trillion left.”
This was the way the Presidency waved off claims of a missing N89.09 trillion from stamp duty, as false, saying scammers who had earlier tried to hoodwink the Federal Government, were currently at work in promoting the ridiculous narrative.
Presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu, who responded to the scandalous claims, said in a statement on Tuesday that the claims being made by Gudaji Kazaure, member of the House of Representatives on mismanagement or embezzlement of stamp duty funds, was patently false.
Kazaure, who said he is also the Secretary of the Presidential Committee on the reconciliation and recovery of all stamp duties, had in a recent interview, not only made the allegation, but accused the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (OSGF), and the protocol department of the State House, of conspiring to prevent him from briefing President Muhammadu Buhari on the findings so far made, in order to brief him on progress reports on efforts to trace trapped N89.09 trillion.
But, the statement, in dismissing the claim, explaining how the issues surrounding the development, began when the President came into office in 2015 and discovered that a law, which stipulated for the collection of a “token on banking transactions existed but was not being correctly implemented,” because certain characters apparently formed a cartel with collaborators in the Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST) and were allegedly “collecting and pocketing this money.”
A Non Government Organisation (NGO) was said to have brought up the issue before the new government, claiming that the country had lost the sum of over N20 trillion to the Nigerian Inter-bank Settlement System ((NIBSS) between 2013-2016 in this regard, assuring that the money could be recovered and paid back into the government coffers.
“The consultants asked to be paid a professional fee of 7.5 percent and were placed under the supervision of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF). Following the lack of progress in the promised recovery, the late Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari, wrote on March 8, 2018 to the SGF conveying a presidential directive that following the lack of progress and several expressed concerns received, the activities of the consultants be discontinued.
“In the aftermath of this dismissal, the consultants sued the government. A court of competent jurisdiction subsequently ruled in favour of the government.
“Arising from the outcome of the litigation and the well-known controversy on the legally responsible agent for collecting this levy, the administration went to the National Assembly and caused an amendment to the law and removed NIPOST from the duty of its collection.
“Having lost a potentially lucrative line of business, the characters returned to the drawing board to formulate one form of trick or another to intimidate the government but the vigilant teams of the administration kept them at bay. They returned lately to the government through honourable Muhammadu Gudaji Kazaure with a plan to track the so-called lost stamp duties with the erstwhile consultant as chairman and honourable Gudaji as secretary.
“When it emerged that the petitioner and lead consultant of the committee the President had dissolved via the late Abba Kyari’s letter of March 28 had masqueraded himself and re-emerged as the chairman of the new recovery committee championed by the Hon. Gudaji, the President rescinded the approval he gave and asked that it be stopped from operating under the seal of his office.
“In addition to this committee being chaired by a petitioner, there were also other concerns relating to natural justice and fair hearing in having the Chief Justice of the Federation as a committee member and a serving member of the house of representatives as secretary, which are not in line with section 5(1),(a)&(b) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended).
“Once the President rescinded his approval to constitute this committee, (it) lost all legitimacy. Arguments have in recent days been flying left and right over the rightfulness of a committee being dissolved. People are entitled to hold opinions. But these opinions do not change the fact that under our constitution, the power of the President to appoint and remove persons or groups is duly entrenched and unless such powers are shared with the parliament, the President can hire and fire literally at will, and in line with the law.
“Therefore, there is evidence to debunk claims Kazaure’s claims on the missing funds. The same set of consultants claimed in 2016 that there was N20 trillion to be collected, but it was found to be false. To go back to the main issue though, it is now evident that the consultants and petitioners’ claims of a missing N89 trillion from stamp duty appears false and a figment of their malicious imaginations. The entire banking sector deposit is not even up to half of N89 trillion.
“Indeed, if the Federal Government can find N89 trillion, it can pay off all its debt, both foreign and local currency and all state government debts and still have over N10 trillion left. So, the claim by these so-called consultants and the disbanded committee is totally ridiculous and a complete mockery.”
Meanwhile, in a recent a video clip in Hausa and a press release in English, Kazaure had asked Shehu to answer pertinent questions relating to the matter particularly the sources of the $171 billion in the CBN’s I&E window account; N23.4 trillion CBN gave as a loan to some banks; and N13 trillion loan to the federal government from FMDQ;
In response, Shehu said: “To my knowledge, the CBN-established investors and exporters (I&E) window is a foreign exchange trading platform where banks and other authorised dealers can buy or sell foreign exchange. These trades are recorded by the CBN daily and reported as turnover or activity in the market.”
“Contrary to Hon. Kazaure’s assertion, the I&E window is NOT an “account” where foreign exchange is deposited. It is simply a platform for trading foreign exchange. As of April 2020, the total amount of foreign exchange traded (either bought or sold) in the window was about $171 billion. The size of this amount suggests that there is adequate liquidity or availability of foreign exchange and that anyone who wants to buy or sell would easily find a counterparty to trade with. The amount does not mean that we have $171 billion stacked away in some vault or saved in any account.
“Note that both the CBN and authorised dealers are free to bring foreign exchange to the window, and in fact, the CBN is not the major seller of foreign exchange in that segment of the market.”
On the N23.4 trillion loan the apex bank was to have given some banks, he described the lawmaker’s assertion as “baseless,” adding: “The CBN is best placed to respond to this question though I must say the assertion itself is both baseless and misleading. The total balance sheet of the CBN is not anywhere near N23 trillion. So how can it give such an amount in loans to any or some banks?”
Also speaking on the source of the FMDQ loan to the federal government, the presidential spokesman, quoting data from Debt Management Office (DMO) said the total amount of Nigeria’s domestic debt as of September 2022 is N21.6 trillion, wondering that if Kazaure suggesting that a “small company in Lagos holds over 60 percent of Nigeria’s domestic debt.
“More also, of the N21.6 trillion domestic debt, only N4.5 trillion are in treasury bills? How then can a company in Lagos hold more treasury bills (N13 trillion) than the entire treasury bills issued by the federal government? For the avoidance of doubt, I also took time to reach out to the FMDQ (Financial Markets Derivative Quotes) and understand from their audited financial statements that their holdings of FGN treasury bills is just N7.99 billion as of December 2021.”
Stating that he could not provide a response to Kazaure’s enquiry on the ‘total equity of CBN and its national budget.’ he said: “Anyone who understands this question should provide an answer. I can offer this information: on an annual basis and in line with the fiscal responsibility act, the CBN transfers 80 percent of its operating surplus to the federal government as part of the budget revenues. In the last six years, this contribution has amounted to over N150 billion.
“Let me inform, that Mr. President has not completely ignored these matters. Indeed, a duly authorised committee under the attorney-general and minister of justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN) is working to reconcile, recover and transfer all stamp duties into stamp duties central account. The work is ongoing, it is not finished yet and the President will continue to show his keen interest in the matter of stamp duty collection.”
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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