How to fight insurgency without loans, by civil society group

The Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) has said Nigeria cannot be looking for resources to fight the insurgency while refusing to block the leakages in its fiscal system.

A statement by Eze Onyekpere, the Lead Director of the center in apparent reaction to President Goodluck Jonathan’s request to the national assembly to approve a $1billion (about N162 billion) foreign to prosecute the war against Boko Haram insurgents said it was uncalled.

“The waste that emanates from the loss of over 350,000 barrels of crude oil every day to theft has been left unattended by the Federal Government. 350,000 barrels of crude oil a day at an average price of $100 dollars per barrel is $35million a day which will amount to $1.085 billion in a 31 day month like July 2014,” he said.

This sum is more than the $1billion requested, Oyekpere explained.

He further said “the Federal Government has refused to call to account the natural and artificial persons who brazenly mismanaged various security contracts including the Abuja CCTV contract.”

He asked: “How can the FGN (federal government of Nigeria) be asking for approval to borrow when it has failed to properly husband the resources entrusted to it? Where is the guarantee that if the loan is approved that the resources will not be mismanaged?”

Oyekpere further alleged that the $1billion request was violating the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA) which authorizes borrowing only for capital expenditure and human development “provided that such borrowing shall be on concessional terms with low interest rate and with a reasonably long amortization period.”