Opinion: Questions for our children By – SONALA OLUMHENSE

Twenty years ago, Nigeria began her Fourth Republic, with the man who, as military Head of State, had handed power over to the nation’s last elected leader being inaugurated as President.

Here, in the first in a new series, but in no order, is a slice of the philosophical, ethical, rhetorical, fiscal questions Nigerians ought to ask loudly, and never forget:

Where are the results of the sacrifice and patience of Nigerians that President Olusegun Obasanjo, at his inauguration in May 1999, promised Nigerians would be “clear and manifest for all to see”? “You have been asked many times in the past to make sacrifices and to be patient,” he said.  “I am also going to ask you to make sacrifices, and to exercise patience. The difference will be that in the past sacrifices were made and patience exercised with little or no results.”

Indeed, did Obasanjo impose the “forthright, purposeful, committed, honest, and transparent leadership” he pronounced the situation to have demanded?

Has Buhari joined recent leaders he accused at his inauguration in 2015 as behaving “like spoilt children breaking everything and bringing disorder to the house,” unlike the founding fathers he celebrated for establishing “a viable and progressive country.”

Change. Is it a noun, a verb, or an event?  Is the CHANGE he promised already here, and is it related to ‘Change Begins With Me,’ the National Re-orientation Campaign he launched in March 2018?   Why is it that Buhari no longer pronounces it?

Whatever happened to the six agreements Nigeria signed with Britain in January 2016 for the return of Nigeria’s stolen assets, and what has been returned?  A report by the East African newspaper on May 14, 2018, said the EFCC “unveiled evidence of how some public office holders benefited from the London-Paris Club refund and how the cash was laundered in Dubai, UAE.”

Do recovered assets from Britain—if any—include the thousands of properties illegally owned by former Nigerian officials, and the $10 million home in central London that the United States confirmed in 2008 as belonging to former President Umaru Yar’Adua despite his failure to declare it in 2007, or does that fall outside the “no-go” category?

Where are the reports and websites demanded by Nigerian courts of the Buhari government about the spending of recovered loot by various governments, including his own, since 1999?

In a contribution to an Asset Recovery Workshop in Basel, Switzerland, on 15 May 2007, entitled ‘Case Study 3: The Success Story – Sani Abacha,’ Enrico Manfrini, Obasanjo’s Abacha Loot lawyer, spoke about “how creative solutions were found to identify, freeze and repatriate proceeds of crime, so far for an amount of 1.2 billion US$,” and offered warnings that could further help Nigeria, but has anyone read it?

Manfrini’s figure ties in with the $1.7billion that Hans-Rudolf Hodel, the Ambassador of Switzerland to Nigeria, told journalists in Abuja in November 2013 his government had returned in cash and assets to Nigeria and other countries in 15 years, but what did Nigeria do with the money?

It is also in line with statements by Nuhu Ribadu, the pioneer chairman of the EFCC, including in London in November 2006 that Abacha “took over $6 billion from Nigeria,” of which $2 billion was recovered during his term of office; but who has seen the money, or what was done with it?

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria’s two-time Minister of Finance, would later say that only $500m was recovered, despite having said at a press conference in September 2005 in Switzerland that Nigeria had already recovered “about $2 billion total of assets.”

In February 2007, as outrage about the spending spread in Nigeria, Nenadi Usman, who succeeded Okonjo-Iweala as Finance Minister, curiously said that the government was investigating how the recovered loot was being spent, but did anyone ever see the report of that investigation?

More recently on the subject, Obasanjo has described as “stupid,” all demands for information on the spending, saying “All Abacha loot were sent to Central Bank of Nigeria and every bit of it was reported to Minister of Finance…”  Were the funds banked or spent; where are the records, and where are the projects, if any?

Given that Section 140 of the Nigerian constitution provides that “A person elected to the office of President shall not begin to perform the functions of that office until he has declared his assets and liabilities,” will Buhari declare his assets this week, or neglect to do so because of Atiku Abubakar’s challenge?

Whatever happened to the N70bn the National Economic Council approved in August 2010 to help small and medium scale farmers and guarantee food security?   Rotimi Amaechi, the then Rivers State Governor and now Minister of Transportation, told the press in Aso Rock, “N70billion has been disbursed, remaining N130 billion.”

Where did President Jonathan’s Transformation Agenda go?  Did it “emphasise the rule of law, judicial system and the policing system,” as Shamsudeen Usman, his Minister of National Planning, assured journalists in October 2011?

What is President Buhari’s economic strategy?  What is the name of his Economic Adviser, if any—as opposed to the Economic Adviser of the Vice-President—and why is this name never heard?

Whatever happened to the “massive fraud” the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Usani Uguru, told State House correspondents in May 2017 the government had uncovered in various projects in the area between 2009 and 2015 totaling over N423bn (an amount the minister specifically said did not include funds expended by other intervention agencies), with some contractors collecting money without ever going to their sites?

Where is the electricity promised Nigerians for 20 years?  Before assuming office in 2000, Obasanjo declared, “On my honour, by the end of 2001, Nigerians would begin to enjoy regular, uninterrupted power supply”.

In February 2008, as late President Umaru Yar’Adua launched his Presidential Committee on the Accelerated Expansion of Power, he promised that Nigerians would be getting their full electricity needs by December 2009.

On 23 November 2009, as Vice-President, Mr. Jonathan promised Nigerians uninterrupted supply of electricity in 2010. In September 2010, he upgraded his promise: Nigeria would have electricity in 2012, he said. In May 2011, Labaran Maku, his Minister of Information and Communications, told journalists in Abuja that Nigerians would have power in 2013.

In his ‘Covenant with Nigerians’ message 10 days before the 2015 election, presidential candidate Buhari said what was required for Nigeria’s advancement was to “galvanise all our citizens to believe once again in their government, in their country and especially, to believe in themselves…”  Has he started his galvanisation drive?

Whatever happened to the middle-aged Nigerian who physically attacked Obasanjo in his car at the Presidential Wing of the Murtala Muhammed Airport, in Lagos in November 2010, and why was nothing ever heard from, or about him from any of the newspapers who reported the story?

On July 21, 2008, Reuters calculated that Nigeria had earned in four decades nearly $1.2 trillion from oil production, “the sort of money that enabled oil-producing Gulf states like Qatar to develop some of the strongest economies in the Arab world.” Should we simply legalise looting? Punch