Buhari’s N30 trillion ways and means mess: Matters arising

When after leaving office on May 29 2023, former President Muhamadu Buhari was reported to have warned that nobody should call him back to answer questions about his administration, it was doubtful that even the man believed himself. Against the backdrop of his proclivities when he seized office as a military head of state in the December 31st 1983 coup de tat, and launched a most scorching retributive assault on perceived corrupt political office holders, as well as executed death sentences on drug offenders, he clearly should appreciate that what comes around in political leadership of a country like Nigeria, easily goes around.

However, whether he believes himself or not, the day of reckoning is here and now, when answers to hard questions about his administration are demanded by Nigerians, especially with respect to the N31 trillion Ways and Means loan mess, which is associated with his tenure. And if nothing else matters to him, this is an instance where he should be preparing his responses to possible questions that may require his personal attention. After all, such a dispensation is not too much a price to pay, for leading the country for eight solid years, even with lingering, calamitous legacies, in the bargain.

For instance the Senate has commenced a probe into the matter of the N30 trillion Ways and Means facility which was granted the immediate past administration of Muhamadu Buhari, by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), under the leadership of Godwin Emefiele, and which the legislature blames for the current economic crisis in the country. The upper chamber has consequently constituted an ad hoc committee to interrogate the disbursement and usage of the loan.

The resolution to investigate the matter was sequel to a report of the Joint Senate Committee on Banking, Insurance and other Financial Institutions, Finance, National Planning, Agriculture and Appropriation which was presented during the plenary last week. The Senate President Godswill Akpabio, had announced the resolution after a majority of the Senators supported it through voice votes.

According to Godswill Akpabio, the ad hoc committee is “…set up to interrogate the details of the Ways and Means and their disbursement and usage, particularly the intervention programmes such as Anchor Borrowers Programme, excess funding in the power sector, monies given to manufacturers and banks and airlines which of course increased the current debt profile of the country”.

Earlier on, the Chairman of the Joint Committee, Yahaya Abdullahi, who represents Kebbi North on the platform of the

Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and who presented the report, had explained that the Ways and Means facility under consideration, was one of the major factors that caused the current economic hardship ravaging the country. He further advised the Federal Government to settle the N30 trillion debt in order to reduce the money supply. He also urged the CBN to ensure that beneficiaries of various intervention programmes who failed to utilise the funds judiciously, should refund the monies appropriated to them.

Interestingly, in their serial excoriation of the bad loan package, various Senators who contributed did not spare the immediate past Ninth Senate which was led by Ahmed Lawan, even as he is still a serving Senator, and was seated in the plenary session, as they blamed his leadership for approving such a huge advance for the federal government, which turned out unsatisfactory outcomes for the country.

Just as well, an interesting twist in the saga was the revelation by Lawan in his defense during the debate, that his leadership ‘approved a total of N23 trillion for the Ways and Means loan, and not N30 trillion. In his words, “What the Ninth National Assembly approved or ratified in terms of Ways and Means was not N29 or N30 trillion. It was N22 trillion but there was N819 billion to address a very serious infrastructure dilapidation that we have across the country.

“So, it was not N30 trillion. It was N22 trillion and then, of course, the one we added made it almost N23 trillion. 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”, Lawan averred as he also lent his weight to the investigation of the matter as tabled.

To tighten the twist in the saga, Barau Jibrin, the Deputy Senate President, who was the Chairman of the Appropriations Committee in the immediate past Ninth Senate, countered that the leadership of the upper chamber at the time approved the N30 trillion even without proper details and background. According to him, when his committee queried the missing details of the Ways and Means package as proposed by the Buhari administration, the latter promised to send the proper details of the loan. He, however noted that the executive arm eventually failed to send the details of the loan as promised. Hence, the Ninth National Assembly had approved the Ways and Means request, in the failed expectation that the executive would send details containing what the funds were meant for and how the fund would be disbursed.

These angles of the situation to wit – an unaccounted for sum of N7 trillion, and absence of mandatory documentation for the entire exercise, seems to constitute the big elephant in the room, as while Jibrin went on to commend the previous Ninth National Assembly for collaborating with the executive arm over the facility, what actually took place was a connivance between elements in the executive arm and the National Assembly, to hoodwink and rob the nation of the common patrimony of all Nigerians. Hence his assertion that it was done in the interest of the country remains a grand fallacy, and an insult to the sensibilities of all Nigerians.

This consideration also vindicates the query by the Senate President Godswill Akpabio on why the Ways and Means package of N30 trillion was approved without proper documentation and clarification. Hence also was his contention justified that the Ways and Means facility is a major factor that worsened the prevailing harshness of the Nigerian economy, by deepening the country’s indebtedness.