Okonjo-Iweala: From the sublime to the ridiculous by Biola Sobowale

By Biola Sobowale
“The Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), the official regulator of Nigeria’s oil sector failed to pay N2 trillion revenue from domestic crude oil sales to the Federation Account between January and December 2013, investigations by Daily Trust on Sunday has revealed.”
Fidelis Mac-Leva and Daniel Adugbo.
The authors of the report based it on “a report the corporation [NNPC] submitted to the Federal Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) meeting in January 2014. For the sake of those who might not be aware, the FAAC monthly meeting is attended by the Minister of State for Finance, who must report back to the Minister, as well as all the state commissioners of finance. This revelation, if found to be true, means only one thing. Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, knew as far back as January last year that the NNPC was mismanaging funds
belonging to the entire country and she actively collaborated in the, perhaps, criminal cover-up of misappropriation of public funds. The N2 trillion withheld represented close to half of the total budget for 2013 and one entity was allowed to sit on that colossal amount.
Several questions and observations arise from this. But, there is one inescapable conclusion among others. Okonjo-Iweala had gone from the lofty heights of being a much respected and admired Managing Director of the World Bank to a former Finance Minister who can no longer be trusted with public funds. This is so because she is also implicated in the controversy regarding how $2 billion disappeared from the Excess Crude Account, ECA. Dr Ngozi, who first claimed the withdrawal was approved, later amended the story to declare that the approval came from Jonathan who was not vested with the power to unilaterally order such withdrawals. Furthermore, Nigerians were told that the funds were used to pay fuel subsidy claims by marketers. Again, it appears that only $1 billion was used for that purpose. Now Oshiohole is charging that $1 billion was released to fund Jonathan’s campaign.
Already, we are again being told that a lot more money was frittered away on Duty Waivers, an incredible percentage of which went to those not deserving of it because they fell outside of the policy guidelines for waivers. Here, again, the former Coordinating Minister for the Economy, CME, has been caught in a nasty dispute with critics.
SURE-P is another stinking can of worms waiting to be opened. The sudden closure of the SURE-P programme in several states, allegations of fraud in virtually every state has almost guaranteed that another probe will follow. Yet, as far back as 2012, Dr Ngozi was told on these pages that the SURE-P programme hastily prepared to pacify Nigerians was full of unachievable targets and based on shaky assumptions. That in the end it would turn out to be another drain-pipe. The last time the former CME made a statement about SURE-P, it was to announce the ordered arrest of one fellow who defrauded SURE-P and some of the beneficiaries. That was an accident certain to occur..
To call the entire episode messy would amount to the greatest understatement of the year. Any way one looks at it, the former Minister’s reputation is taking a beating from which it might never recover. If this continues much longer and more revelations are made, she might eventually find herself with no reputation to protect. Altogether, the picture that is emerging is not one of a prudent manager of the nation’s economic resources but a flagrant and complicit prodigal daughter. Dr Ngozi, in the end, totally subjugated economics to politics; she was just too eager to comply with any request by her political masters – especially the President. Certainly, she must have been operating on the assumption that Jonathan would be re-elected and all their misadventures will be covered up. That was a gamble with her reputation which has now back-fired. She would spend the rest of her days answering tough questions – in and out of court.
Court appearances are now inevitable – because massive probes of Duty Waiver, ECA, Sovereign Wealth Fund, NLGN transfers etc are no longer avoidable. It is difficult to imagine how she would come out totally exonerated in all these.
When former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Sanusi Lamido, first announced that about US$20 billion was missing from the Federation Account on account of shady activities of the NNPC, Okonjo-Iweala, was the first to ridicule the idea. To pacify Nigerians, a forensic audit was promised whose report was not published until over a year. Predictably, that “audit” which did the reputation of PriceWaterhouse no good, while accepting that NNPC had indeed withheld revenue meant for the Federation Account, pleaded guilty to a far smaller sum. Obviously, both the former Minister for Petroleum Resources and the Finance Minister, who had copies of the January 2014 report, must have concealed them. Was that a crime and were the two ladies, and others still to be named, deliberate conspirators or inadvertent collaborators? Given the mounting evidence of monumental misappropriation, fraud and embezzlement, few will believe them if they claim innocence.
“From the sublime to the ridiculous, there is only one step”, said Thomas Paine, 1737-1809. (VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS p 236). Dr Okonjo-Iweala took that fatal step when she accepted to return as Minister of Finance. Perhaps if she had remained at the World Bank and applied for the Presidency of the African Development Bank, she, not Adesina, would be President of ADB today.
Ref:  http://www.peoplesdailyng.com/okonjo-iweala-from-the-sublime-to-the-ridiculous/