Doing Father Christmas with Abacha loot

It was disclosed last week that $322million in Abacha loot, which was recently repatriated to the country from Switzerland, will be shared by the Federal Government directly to poor Nigerians. National Coordinator of the Open Government Partnership [OGP], Nigeria Juliet Ibekaku-Nwagwu, who is also Special Assistant to the President on Justice Reforms, announced this to newsmen in Abuja. She said the Federal Government is making final preparations to disburse the funds to poor Nigerians.

According to Ibekeaku-Nwagwu, under the terms of the Memorandum of Understanding [MoU] that the Federal Government signed with Switzerland, the funds would be paid directly into the accounts of the poorest Nigerians through their various accounts for two years and identification numbers will be made available on the website being developed by the National Social Investment Office and the World Bank. She said the agencies working on the modalities would brief the public this week, adding that the process for the payment will be transparent for civil society and the media to monitor.

She also said “despite opposition against the MoU from within and outside government, Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice Abubakar Malami (SAN) and his team have pursued President Muhammadu Buhari’s agenda of ensuring that the $322m was returned for deployment in the social safety nets project, which would make targeted transfers to the poor and vulnerable households.” She added that “the poorest members of the community will be registered online, and before you make any payment they must have an ID number so that every payment would be tracked. No amount will be paid out without a joint signature between Nigeria and the World Bank and without identification of individuals.”

This is a very strange arrangement indeed. Ideally, the Abacha loot should go into the Federation Account and should belong to all three tiers of government. Even if it belongs to the Federal Government alone, it is doubtful that this is the best course of action given all the problems that government has to tackle. Many would argue that it is better to channel the money into a project or program with a lot of value added whether in education, agriculture or infrastructure that a large section of Nigerians will benefit from. Even though the Special Assistant said it is part of the MoU with Switzerland, it is not clear at whose behest, our government or the Swiss, that it made it into the MoU.

A scheme that disburses money directly to millions or at least hundreds of thousands of Nigerians is fraught with difficulties and is highly susceptible to abuse and fraud at various stages of implementation. Although the National Coordinator explained at length the measures being taken to prevent this, they sound good only on paper. Right now, other aspects of the Social Investment Scheme being implemented, such as school feeding are riddled with such implementation problems. While it is desirable indeed to give money to the poorest citizens over a two-year period, without entrepreneurship training and other support they are likely to squander this money in consumer purchases and could remain very poor at the end of the scheme. We urge the authorities to think again about this plan, even though it will be very popular in an election year.

A scheme that disburses money directly to millions or at least hundreds of thousands of Nigerians is fraught with difficulties and is highly susceptible to abuse and fraud at various stages of implementation