Published 22nd Feb, 2024

By Joseph Adeiye

Nigeria’s February 2023 general election saw Bola Ahmed Tinubu succeed Muhammadu Buhari as his two-tenured eight-year presidency came to a constitutional end in May.

In February 2024, Godswill Akpabio, Nigeria’s Senate President, claimed that money missing from the previous administration made it difficult for the federal government to service its debts, further complicating governance.

More claims have been made about theft within the Buhari-led government.

From the outset of this analysis, it must be noted that the total scope of official corruption in the federal government remains ever-expanding.

FIJ segments some of the most significant outlets from which trillions of naira left Nigeria’s treasury under Buhari, never to be accounted for.

WAYS AND MEANS FUNDS

A report of the Joint Senate Committee on Banking, Insurance and other Financial Institutions, Finance, National Planning, Agriculture and Appropriation showed that N30 trillion could not be accounted for.

The claim of money missing from the previous administration at the Senate concerned a Ways and Means Fund the Buhari government took.

The Ways and Means is an overdraft the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) issues to the federal government to finance shortfalls in its budget.

In short, the Ways and Means was a loan the CBN gave the government for emergency spending. But the government had to repay that loan.

Former Senate President Ahmed Lawan said that the Senate saw N22.8 trillion approved in Ways and Means during the Buhari administration.

“What the 9th National Assembly approved or ratified in terms of Ways and Means was not N29 trillion or N30 trillion; it was N22 trillion. But there was N819 billion to attend to, to deal and address very serious infrastructural dilapidations across the country,” Lawan told Akpabio on Tuesday.

“If we have a Ways and Means that is N30 trillion today, that means something happened between then and now, and it is for the National Assembly to find out what happened.

“If there were expenditures done wrongfully in contradiction to the provision of the constitution, the National Assembly can look at the expenditures, and if sanctions are needed for unlawful, wrong or unauthorised expenditures, the National Assembly can provide the sanctions.”

The National Assembly knew of the fund at the time but could not explain where most of it went. The current Senate claims it has no idea where the money went.

“What the Senate approved was N819 billion, but what they spent was up to about N23 trillion… the details have never been provided to date. This committee should find out what happened to the money. So, people must be held responsible or they should come and explain to this Senate what they did with the money,” Mohammed Ali Ndume, the Chief Whip of the Senate, said.

Akpabio said that the N22.8 trillion rose to N30 trillion because of the interest element. He said that the Senate was told that interest had accrued an extra N7 trillion.

CRUDE OIL THEFT

Mele Kyari, the Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL), said that crude oil thieves employed technology to steal Nigeria’s resources.

“When you introduce technology into stealing, and this is precisely what they did, there is a collaboration with people who should not be a part of that transaction; you can lay pipelines and nobody will see it… We didn’t know [much about the crude oil theft] because the extent of collaboration was unknown to us,” Kyari told Channels TV in November 2022. He said that the NNPCL was doing better to combat crude oil theft.

However, in October 2021, Kyari said that a minority of elite Nigerians were responsible for stealing $3.6 billion from Nigeria’s crude oil annually.

Kyari said that about 42.2 million barrels of crude oil were stolen every year as of 2021. At the prevailing price of $85 per barrel, the amount of crude oil stolen each year was worth $3.6 billion.

Between 2015 and 2021, $3.6 billion stolen from Nigeria’s crude oil was $21.6 billion.

PRESS STATEMENT

PRIVATE SECURITY CONTRACTORS INTERCEPT 800,000 LITRE CAPACITY VESSEL WITH STOLEN CRUDE OIL

Following the receipt of credible intelligence, a Private Security Contractor engaged by NNPC Ltd., Messrs. Tantita Security Services, intercepted a suspicious Vessel with… pic.twitter.com/eWGD7XY0au
— NNPC Limited (@nnpclimited) July 10, 2023

The NNPCL said that this vessel had stolen crude oil from Nigeria for at least ten years.

The culprits remain at large, and Kyari or the government failed to explain who those Nigerian elite were.

NON-OIL EXPORTS

A lot went missing from what Nigeria ought to export in its leading petroleum exports, so the country’s non-oil exports are sometimes overlooked.

As of February 16, the Auditor-General of the Federation wanted the CBN to account for the proceeds from “non-oil export and non-oil revenue between January 2020 and December 2020”. Those proceeds were reportedly missing. The exact amount is unknown.

The Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) provided little on its website about the proceeds of Nigeria’s 2020 exports but revealed in 2023 that non-oil exports grew by 39.91 percent to $4.820 billion in 2022.

MONEY TAKEN BY CBN GOVERNOR

Godwin Emefiele, the former CBN governor, is on trial for numerous charges, including fraud.

One of the charges against Emefiele claims he bypassed the presidency to take $6.2 million out of the CBN.

Although the trial is ongoing and the specifics remain contestable, former Secretary General of the Federation Boss Mustapha and high-ranking CBN staff have testified that the money was indeed missing.

“On the face value of the document, I can say, having served five years and seven months, this document did not emanate from the office of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Correspondence that carries the seal of the President of Nigeria does not carry a reference number. The seal is the authority,” Mustapha said.

“The Federal Executive Council (FEC) decisions are not transmitted by letters. They are transmitted through extracts after conclusions are adopted.

“I am the custodian of the record of FEC. For that reason, the president cannot refer any executive conclusion to me.

“All the years I have served, I have never heard of the term ‘special appropriation provision’. The two terms known to me are appropriation, as provided for by the Appropriation Act passed by the National Assembly. The second is when the government finds a gap, it brings a supplementary appropriation.

“In all the correspondences I have received from Buhari, it has never had ‘please accept the assurance of my highest regard’. I am his subordinate. The signature is a failed attempt at reproducing President Muhammadu Buhari’s signature. But I will leave that to the experts.”

Neither the presidency nor Emefiele have explained why the $6.2 million was withdrawn or where it is.

PROJECT MONEY UNACCOUNTED FOR

The Federal High Court in Abuja ordered Buhari in May 2023 to account for a $460 million loan taken from China for a Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) project. That project has failed to materialise, and the federal government has yet to detail its use of those funds.

The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), a legal non-governmental organisation, wrote to the Buhari-led government numerous times about funds meant for similar projects gone missing or billions misappropriated in parastatals. There was often no response.

The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) tracked some constituency projects between 2019 and 2022 and found that at least N2 billion was siphoned.

At least N8.7 billion is also missing from public funds paid to 17 different contractors for Special Interest Projects (SIPs) abandoned in 2023 alone. The 2023 appropriation bill was Buhari’s final budget.

Documents obtained from the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) revealed that N37,170,855,753.44 was laundered in the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs under Sadiya Umar-Farouk.

The N37 billion was transferred from the federal government to 38 different bank accounts connected with James Okwete, a contractor.

CONSERVATIVE CUMULATIVE

The funds highlighted in this report are not just missing, they remain unaccounted for. They, however, are not all of the public funds unaccounted for.

Reports from offices such as that of the Auditor-General for the Federation take years before publication. These reports are also rarely available on request for year-on-year analyses.

Here is the math from the figures in this abridged report alone:

WAYS AND MEANS	N22 trillion				N22 trillion
CRUDE OIL THEFT	$21.6 billion				N32.4 trillion
CBN GOVERNOR	$6.2 million				N9 billion
PROJECT MONEY	$460 million	N37 billion	N8.7b	N2b	N737.7 billion
					N55.1 trillion