Fela’s Army arrangement (from where i got the subject of this piece) was a
\nclassic amongst others. In that particular song he sang about corruption
\nespecially about a certain 2.8billion Naira that got missing. About how
\n‘dem set up inquiry’,how’ dem say money no lost’,how ‘ dem dabaru every
\nbody’ and ‘ inquiry come close’.
\nThat was years back and he knew who took that oil money. Since he dropped
\nthat classic, money has continued to miss with reckless abandon and today,
\nour 500billion Naira oil money is missing, we do not know yet if we will
\never find it.
\nAt the beginning of 2012, we woke up to the announcement by the president
\nthat there was going to be a removal of the fuel subsidy, meaning we had
\nto pay more for fuel. We were not going to have none of that. But as is
\nthe norm here, they did all they could to convince us that is the solution
\nto all our problems. They said the life of the ordinary man will be
\nimpacted. They promised us employment; they said the education sector will
\nimprove, that power supply will be amongst the best in the world, they
\npromised us standard health care and all.
\nThey said a few individuals had been milking us for years and that the
\nsubsidy removal will remove the food from their mouth and transfer same to
\nus-the people. They told us our problems were finally over.
\nWe still protested nonetheless. Those that hit the streets did. Everybody
\ncomplained one way or the other and that was it. The protest ended and we
\nlost as usual. They got their wish
\nEnter SURE-P. This is an initiative similar to the PTF if you remember.
\nThe Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment programme was introduced to make
\npeople feel the positive impact of the subsidy removal. The programme has
\ncommittees and sub committees from infrastructure development, to public
\nworks, to maternal and child health care and so on.\u00a0 This was set up in
\nFebruary of 2012 and we are yet to feel the impact of SURE-P.\u00a0 This is
\nsupposed to be an initiative that will bring relief to citizens
\nexperiencing hardship as a result of that subsidy removal and today the
\nstory is the same. There has been no improvement. We in fact are having it
\nworse. It is just so plain to see and nobody should come and tell us
\notherwise. Most people do not even know the existence of the SURE-P. The
\nstate of our infrastructure is not improving. Health care is getting
\nworse. Our women and children (especially in the rural areas) are dying
\nfrom curable sicknesses. The unemployment rate is soaring. I understand
\nten thousand naira is given to like 100,000 people from the SURE-P
\naccount. Is that way to go?
\nThis SURE-P is like a hoax. It is in fact a business venture for a select
\nfew .The impact is not felt at all compared to what the PTF did. Let\u2019s not
\neven fool ourselves. I am yet to be convinced. I have not seen jack.
\nTo make matters worse our 500billion Naira is missing. This money we
\nunderstand is supposed to be for SURE-P. Now the SURE-P has a special
\naccount with the CBN. This means the NNPC pays the subsidy cash into this
\nCBN account for SURE-P.
\nAccording to a member of the SURE-P committee Kabiru Mafara representing
\nZamfara state ,800 billion Naira has been generated so far from subsidy as
\nagainst 300bn that has been claimed by the SURE-P. Hear him \u201cThis
\ncommittee wrote to the relevant organisations that benefit from this
\nSURE-P when it was inaugurated. It was said that the subsidy regime was
\ngoing to be N32 a litre and this committee wrote the NNPC to ascertain the
\nquantity of fuel being imported from the time this subsidy programme
\nstarted.
\n\u201cNNPC replied the committee that from January 2012 to December 2013, which
\nif you calculate it will give about 21 months.. they gave a breakdown of
\nthe quantity per month. When you put up everything, it comes to roughly 25
\nbillion litres per month.
\n\u201cNow, if you multiply 25 billion by 32, you get about N800 billion, and
\nwhat SURE-P told us when they came here when we invited them was that they
\ncollected about N300 billion at N15 billion flat rate per month. So if you
\nmultiply 21 by 15 billion, you will get about N315 billion. So what we are
\ntalking about is the amount involved, which is N500 billion, where is it?
\nThat is what we wanted NNPC to tell us.\u201d
\n\u201cMaybe CBN will tell us this is what NNPC is remitting to them he
\ncontinued; maybe NNPC will say no, we have been remitting this amount of
\nmoney, but CBN is remitting on N15 billion. So, they are remitting only
\nN15 billion; then we will ask CBN: how did you come about the N15 billion
\nflat rate, because this thing can\u2019t be a flat rate?\u201d
\nSo the question still remains, where is our 500billion Naira? It is
\nevident from the above statement that our oil money is missing.
\nAs usual, the NNPC did not show up to explain. Will it ever give us an
\nexplanation? Only time will tell. It looks most unlikely though, because
\nthe amount of sleaze that\u2019s been going on in the NNPC stinks and nobody\u2019s
\nbeen brought to book. It is looking like somebody from NNPC is holding
\nthis government by the balls.
\nIs the SURE-P being undermined? I think not (time will tell too). Thus
\nfar, it has not even impressed, even with the amount it claims to have
\ngotten.
\nThis grand corruption should not be swept under the carpet. I am surprised
\nthat this particular sleaze has not generated a lot of heat as Stella and
\nthe Bullet proof BMW.\u00a0 We are not even done with that ;then this. As usual
\ncommittees will be set up and it drags on and on and we all forget. That
\nhas always been their strategy. This trend must stop. Think of what 500
\nbillion Naira can do!
\nThis is another test for the Goodluck Jonathan led government (while we
\nawait what comes out of the Oduah case).
\nI just want to remind the government that while we are at setting up
\ncommittees to tackle corrupt practices, Ghana our neighbour is teaching us
\nhow to go about it. You must have heard that the Deputy Minister of
\ncommunication of Ghana was recently sacked because of some careless
\nSTATEMENT. Yes, she just talked. She has not actually done the deed. She
\nallegedly said she won\u2019t leave government until she\u2019s made 1 million
\ndollars and then bang; she gets the sack! Will that ever happen here? Not
\nin this life time! Not in a million years. Our government and its attack
\ndogs will come at you blazing. Barking like rabid dogs. They\u2019d ask you
\nwhen it became a crime to talk.
\nTo think this is the same Ghana whose citizens we\u00a0 chased away from here
\nsome years ago because they were becoming a nuisance? Now they are leading
\nthe way in almost every facet and we even refuse to follow. Our people now
\ntake pride in enrolling their wards in Ghanaian universities and fact is
\nthey seem to have made the right choice!
\nIt is time to rise against corruption before it kills us all.
\nThis recent sleaze should be looked into thoroughly and whoever is
\nculpable should get the coldest part of Jail. This is another test for
\nthis government to really prove its stance against corruption as we all
\nknow that is the number one reason why we are where we are today.
\nI hope they don\u2019t dabaru everybody in this case as well as the BMWs just
\nlike they Did Fela a while back. Baba knew who stole his 2.8billion Naira
\nthen; can we at least know who stole our 5oobillion Niara?<\/p>\n
God bless Nigeria.<\/p>\n
Chiechefulam Ikebuiro
\nthalynxis@yahoo.ca
\n@thalynxis<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fela’s Army arrangement (from where i got the subject of this piece) was a classic amongst others. In that particular song he sang about corruption especially about a certain 2.8billion…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19262,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles-opinions"],"yoast_head":"\n