I thought I had written my last piece on the Buhari government the week before last. And I’d intended to write about what Nigeria’s first ever same-faith presidency, if we may call it that, might mean for those in it—Tinubu and Shettima—and for the rest of us from today onwards.
But a piece of news that made frontpage headline in several newspapers last week caught my attention instead, and I thought, well, “Muslim-Muslim Presidency” can wait until another day, after all, I only wanted to argue that there is no such thing, and cannot be. As with any other combination of the demographics of the president and vice president we could ever have, it would forever be no more than a Nigerian-Nigerian presidency.
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For now, then, let’s move back into the future on what we might call a plundering presidency, a description the Buhari administration, which leaves office today, is determined to preserve for itself given the activities of its many ranking officials over the past few weeks. Whether this turns out to be the case or not, at least, I can say that when I wrote last month that some officials in the government whose tenure expires today were rather after their own severance packages than anything by way of governance proper, I was deeply mistaken.
I apologise for my naivety because it is now clearer that many in the outgoing (outgone?) administration are rather more interested in what can only be described as a last-minute plunder of the nation than planning for multi-billion-dollar severance packages for themselves alone. That is the only way I can think of President Buhari’s (he still has a few hours to go to become former president at the time of writing this) letter to the Senate requesting approval for payment of N539 billion “judgment debts” last week, with only about three days left for the administration to go.
First, the letter was read on the floor of the Senate during a plenary session by the Senate President, Senator Ahmad Lawan, only on Wednesday, May 24, for a government that exits the stage on May 29. There are only four days between the two dates, and in this case, including two days of a weekend. At most, there are only two official days for which the Senate and the rest of the government are required to take action on this letter, and as we shall see, its rather important contents. Pray, why would a president with just these many days to leave office be sending a letter of request for anything to the Senate other than about handing over notes?
But as it were, the letter was about promissory notes, not handing over notes, for payment of judgment debts in three different currencies amounting to $556 million, £98.5 million and N226 billion respectively. All of these sum up to N539 billion in the official exchange rate, and nearly double that in the parallel market rates.
It is a scandal in itself for a government with only two days of authority left to demand payment of such a huge sum to anyone. Why wait until the last minute to make such a request? Why not make it last year when all Nigerians will have the time and the attention to scrutinize the request?
Yet, it is a worse scandal that an outgoing president would be seeking last-minute approval for payment of over $1.2 billion for nothing else but “judgment debts” awarded by different courts against the federal government or its ministries, departments and agencies.
For God’s sake, why would payment of judgment debts assume so much priority so late for a government that had spent the past year scouring for legacy projects that will help it leave the stage on a high? And even if we agree, and I certainly do not, that debts the government owes arising from legal cases now suddenly assume far more importance than completing infrastructure the government started years ago, why pay all the debts all at once?
Moreover, the letter said in part: “The Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice and the other team of finance, budget and national planning may provide any information that will be required for the consideration of this request”. Now, how does it make sense to request anyone to make a One Billion Dollar decision on a matter for which additional information will be provided only by officials with less than two days to leave office? And if the said officials have this additional information that the Senate will need, why not just add it along with the letter? Why send just a letter and talk about providing additional information later when you will have no further authority to do so?
I am no expert in forensic linguistics but the contents of the letter as reported in the newspapers reek of fraud cocked up by people close enough to Buhari to get him to sign it based on his trust in them. Reading through the letter, you sense an urgency or desperation in its tone about securing the approval for payment by the Senate, an urgency that an outgoing president cannot feel about so mundane an issue as debts incurred by the government from legal cases.
The government will be within its rights to settle those debts in instalments over the next 10 years or more, except if the promissory notes, like the judgments themselves, were cooked up in ways that allow the government no room for manoeuvre.
And in any case, where are the details of the cases? How can we know just the total amounts but have no details whatsoever about the actual cases from which the debts piled up? What courts, local or international awarded the settlements against the federal government and in favour of other interested parties in the case? And why should an Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice be more interested in paying out $1.2 billion of a poor country’s money at a go to other interested parties in cases against his own government than, say, scheduling the payments over a decade or more?
Questions, and yet more questions. But this is only one case, among many, of the last-minute decisions, contracts and payments that were made in the past few weeks of the outgoing/outgone administration.
There are many others besides, such as the selling of two of Nigeria’s international airports for a combined period of 50 years to entities that few in this country have ever heard of, in the name of concessioning. And that does not even include the embarrassment of attempting to deceive Nigerians about the return of a national carrier even after eight years to the last day. In the end, all of these will say something about the people who worked with Buhari one day soon, as they will about his trust in them. We wait.
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