[EDITORIAL] 8 scandalous years of locusts & cankerworms of Buhari
How Buhari spent over $19b fixing refineries without results
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In Igbo language, there is a parlance “chi boo, anu ozo“, which means “every new day is heralded with a new scandal”.
This typified the immediate-past President Muhammadu Buhari Government where a month of the eight torturous years hardly passed by without a corruption scandal that will make even the devil look like a saint.
Just yesterday, June 8, 2023, the governor of Nasarawa State, Mr. Abdullahi Sule, slapped Nigerians with another revelation that former President Buhari spent over $19 billion fixing the country’s four refineries for eight years, which exercise yielded no iota of results.
The revelation hit the airwaves just before the dysphoria and sorrow generated by the revelation of the phantom and fraudulent Nigeria Air, perpetrated by the Buhari Government but spearheaded by his Minister of Aviation, Mr. Hadi Sirika, died down.
Concrete evidence had emerged showing that Nigeria Air never existed, rather, that the former Minister for Aviation, Senator Sirika, reportedly scammed Buhari in particular, and Nigerians in general to the tune of N85 billion.
While answering questions from Senators on Monday, June 5, the Managing Director of Nigeria Air, Dayo Olumide revealed that the airplane which landed at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja on 26th May 2023, that Sirika claimed is one of the Nigeria Air birds, was actually a chartered plane from Ethiopia.
How can a President and his Minister defraud his own citizens? Nigerians are still wondering.
Before we delve into the details of the latest Buhari-spent-$19-billion-fixing-four-refineries-for-eight-years revelation, let us revisit some unheard-of “fantastically corrupt” cases (apologies to the former British Prime Minister, David Cameron) under the former President Buhari administration.
Nana and the Grass cutter
Nigerians went berserk when, in 2016, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) slammed a 10-count charge bordering on conspiracy and unlawful award of contract to former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Babachir Lawal and three others.
Lawal, the grass cutter, was accused of awarding contracts to some companies he had interest in, to the tune of N544 million for the ‘cutting of invasive plant species and simplified irrigation’.
Abba Kyari, from NNPC with love
In the same year, while the dolefulness and misery of Lawal the Grass cutter lingered, News Band (then known as Elombah.com) has received information indicating that Abba Kyari, the late Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari, is a recipient of the $26 billion contract windfall in the Nigeria National Petroleum Commission [NNPC].
Where pesin dey work, ne there him dey chop, work-chop, you may say.
In yet another development, Mansur Dan-Ali, a retired Brigadier-General and Minister of Defence, Danjuma Nanfo, the immediate past permanent secretary in the ministry, and LYM Hassan, a Brigadier-General and coordinator of peacekeeping embezzled $1.4 million.
At a court martial in 2017, Dan-Ali, Nanfo, and Hassan disclosed how money was shared from a $1.4 million contract without the job being executed.
Snake in the monkey shadow
During a visit to Makurdi JAMB office, the sales clerk, Philomina Chieshe, told JAMB registrar and his team that she could not account for N36 million she made in previous years before the abolition of scratch cards.
Before now, JAMB candidates purchased scratch cards from JAMB state offices and other designated centers to gain access to the Board’s website for either registration or to check their admission status.
Shortly thereafter in 2019, while EFCC was still consulting on how to chase the snake, and the language to take the statement of the snake in explanation for keeping human money, the snake smartly moved southwards, crossing Enugu State to enter Anambra State.
It found its way to Ihiala Local Government Secretariat where it reportedly swallowed N1.34 billion being the total amount the council received from federal government as statutory allocations in six months after gaining financial autonomy in June.
The snake euphoria has hardly died down when Jackie Chan’s movie of the early 80s, “Snake in the monkey shadow“, struck a chord again.
This time, monkeys swallowed another N70 million handed over to the Northern Senators Forum in the farm of a ranking senator.
This was revealed to newsmen by Senator Shehu Sani minutes after Senator Abdullahi Adamu was removed as the chairman of Northern Senators forum.
When the Senator was accused of mismanaging N70 million belonging to the Northern Senators, he said that some monkeys swallowed the money.
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Then came the termites!
The former Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Muhammad Tanko, in 2019, stated that terminate ate his first school living certificate issued to him.
Tanko made this known in affidavit sworn at the in Court of Appeal in Jos, Plateau state.
In other words, that Buhari appointed a man without a shred of certificate, an educated illiterate, as the judiciary henchman!
Not done with that, the strategic termites soldiered on to the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) where they reportedly devoured N17 billion vouchers needed to defend query of illegal transfer of fund from two banks.
The Managing Director of Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF), Mr. Michael Akabogu will later clarify and confirm that vouchers of N17.1 billion were missing but noted that element consumed the vouchers.
Summarising the fantastically corrupt eight years of locusts and cankerworms, a former Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Comrade Timi Frank, described the Buhari’s administration as a stinking can of corruption.
Frank was reacting to claims by the chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC), Prof. Itse Sagay, in an interview, that Buhari was being soft on corrupt politicians in his cabinet and within his party in order to “win the 2019 elections” and to “strengthen democracy.”
The former President Buhari’s anti-corruption campaign was bedevilled by scandals and rumours of scandals that one of the foremost analysts of Elombah.com/News Band, Ogbuefi Ndigbo, on February 25, 2018, published 50 Evidence That Nigeria’s Corruption Worsened Under Buhari.
Nigeria had just slipped 12 places according to Transparency International’s 2017 Corruption perception, dropping one point from 28 to 27/100, and slumped from 136th it held in 2015 and 2016 to a shameful 148th in terms of corruption.
Nigeria had ranked 143rd in 2011, 139th in 2012, fell to 144th in 2013, but rose to 136 in 2014 at the twilight of former President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, one of its highest ratings before it crashed under Buhari.
Back to 2023, the Nasarawa State governor, Sule, did not mince words when he said that the Muhammadu Buhari administration expended over $19 billion on repairing Nigeria’s four refineries in eight years without commensurate results.
Speaking on Channels Television, the governor, who was Managing Director of African Petroleum (AP) about two decades ago, stated that the process of fixing the country’s refineries was largely mismanaged.
Nigeria’s ailing refineries were built in the 60s, 70s and 80s, but have since gulped billions of dollars in Turnaround Maintenance (TAM), with the expected outcomes mostly disappointing.
Sule said the situation was made worse by the fact that only the volume lifted from the depots, and not the actual consumption data, was known by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited.
Sule stated: “Just look at how much the President Muhammadu Buhari administration spent on fixing of the refineries. In the eight years, he spent more money than the $19 billion that Dangote spent in building his refinery, which is one and a half times the size of all our three refineries combined.
“Our three refineries today have a total capacity of 450,000 barrels per day. Dangote’s is 650,000 barrels per day. He spent $19 billion.
“We spent more than $19 billion maintaining these refineries in eight years, yet they have not been maintained.”
In the words of an Elombah.com analyst way back in 2016, “may something like Buhari’s depression, melancholy, anxiety, restlessness, despondency, dejection, nepotism and insecurity never happen to Nigeria again!” Read more.
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