Former
President Olusegun Obasanjo spoke yesterday on the state of the economy.
He
urged President Muhammadu Buhari to urgently fix things “because Nigerians are
suffering”.
He
also warned against taking the $29.9billion loan as proposed by the president.
He
said the nation needed less borrowing if the government could invite the right
experts in and out of the government to assist it to fix the economy.
The
former President denounced the National Assembly as a cesspool of corruption
and some of the lawmakers as “unarmed robbers” who are defrauding the nation
through constituency projects and bogus allowances and failing to subject
themselves to institutional control.
He
hoped Buhari would have the courage to deal with the corruption in the
legislature as he is probing the judiciary.
Obasanjo
supported the trial of some judges, saying although some people might be
opposed to the invasion of the homes of some of the judges,
“a
drastic problem deserves a drastic solution, not minding the method”.
He
also chided the military for the corruption which was exposed with the rot in
arms procurement and the misappropriation of the defence budget in the face of
the Boko Haram insurgency. The military, he said, should return to its old ways
of doing things. “The procurement system has to be streamlined and taken back
to what it used to be. The military is not a buyer of its own weapons,
equipment, ammunition and materials.”
Obasanjo’s
thoughts were expressed in a paper he presented at the First Akintola Williams
Annual Lecture in Lagos. Williams is the doyen of accountancy.
He
also criticised the idea of lumping together the three administrations of the
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) – his own President Umaru Yar’Adua’s and
President Goodluck Jonathan’s of the last 16 years and tarring them with the
same brush.
Obasanjo
indicated that his own administration stood out.
He
said Nigerians were suffering and the government must be cautious in
taking steps against a mass revolt, especially by the youths.
He
said: “If we do not fix the economy to relieve the pain and anguish of many
Nigerians, the gain in fighting insurgency and corruption will pale into
insignificance. No administration can or should be comfortable with
excruciating pain of debilitating and crushing economy.
“Businesses
are closing, jobs are being lost and people are suffering. I know that
President Buhari has always expressed concern for the plight of the common
people but that concern must be translated to workable and result-oriented
socio-economic policy and programme that will turn the economy round at the
shortest time possible.
“We
cannot continue to do the same thing and expect things to change. That
will be a miracle which normally doesn’t happen in normal national economies.
“Economy
requires a great element of trust to get it out of the doldrums, let alone out
of negativity. That trust and confidence has to be created.”
Obasanjo
said: “If corruption is continued to be fought courageously and relentlessly,
there will be substantial recovery from within and from without, coupled with
plugging the holes of wastes in Ministries, Departments, Educational
Institutions and parastatals and we will need less borrowing, if we would need
borrowing at all, to get us out of recession than we might have thought.
“ Of
course, we must be ready to bite the bullet of spending less on luxuries and
the unneeded and what we can do without and earning more on production,
services and trading.
“I
believe that going for a huge loan under any guise is inadvisable and it will amount
to going the line of soft option, which will come to haunt us in future.
We immediately need loans to stabilise our foreign reserve and embark on some
infrastructure development but surely not $30 billion over a period of less
than three years.
Obasanjo
supported the ongoing clean-up of the Judiciary and the trial of some judges
which he described as inevitable.
He
said: “Three weeks before the first three judges were arrested for corruption,
I was talking to a fairly senior retired public officer who put things this
way, ‘The Judiciary is gone, the National Assembly is gone, the military is
sunk and the civil service was gone before them; God save Nigeria’. I
said a loud Amen. Three weeks later, the process of saving the
Judiciary began.
“And
if what I have gathered is anything to go by, there may be not less than two
score of judicial officers that may have questions to answer. That will
be salutary for the Judiciary and for the Nation.
“While
one would not feel unconcerned for the method used, one should also ask if
there was an alternative.
“
A drastic action was needed to save the situation, albeit one would have
preferred an alternative that would serve the same purpose, if there was
one. In the absence of that alternative, we must all thank God for giving
the President the wisdom, courage and audacity for giving the security agencies
the leeway to act. There is virtually no corrupt Judge without being
aided by a member of the bar. The Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, has the
responsibility to clean up its own house and help with the cleaning of the
Judiciary.
On
the National Assembly, Obasanjo said: “The National Assembly stinks and stinks
to high heavens. It needs to be purged. With appropriate measures, the budget
of the National Assembly can be brought down to less than 50% of what it is
today. God will help Nigeria, but we must begin by helping ourselves.
“The
National Assembly cabal of today is worse than any cabal that anybody may find
anywhere in our national governance system at any time.
“Members
of the National Assembly pay themselves allowances for staff and offices they
do not have or maintain. Once you are a member, you are co-opted and your mouth
is stuffed with rottenness and corruption that you cannot opt out as you go
home with not less than N15 million a month for a Senator and N10 million a
month for a member of the House of Representatives.
“The
National Assembly is a den of corruption by a gang of unarmed robbers.
“Another
means by which the National Assembly embarks on corruption spree is their
so-called oversight responsibility. They instigate and collude with Ministries,
Departments, Parastatals and Agencies to add to their budget outside what was
submitted by the President with the purpose of sharing the addition or they threaten
such units to reduce what was submitted by the President unless there is a
promise of kickback.
“They
can also set up a spurious committee to investigate a project while they call
on the contractor to pay them or the executive officer in charge of the project
to cough up money, otherwise they would write a bad report
“By
our Constitution, the Revenue Mobilisation, Fiscal and Allocation Commission
should be responsible for fixing the remunerations of the Executive and the
Legislative arms of the government. Any salary, allowance or perquisite not
recommended by the Commission should not be budgeted for; but crooks and
crocked that most of the members of the National Assembly are, they will try to
find other ways which must be blocked.
“In
the past, they even instructed the Clerk of the National Assembly not to reveal
to the Executive details of their remuneration. May God give the President the
wisdom, courage and audacity to be able to do with the National Assembly what
is being done with the Judiciary.
“We
should not continue to live with the impunity and corruption of the National
Assembly.
Obasanjo
also advised the Federal Government to protect the whistle blower in the
National Assembly, an apparent reference to a former Chairman of the House
Committee on Appropriation, Hon. Abdulmumin Jibrin, who accused House Speaker
Yakubu Dogara of “budget padding”. Jibrin is on suspension.
Source:The
Nation
Tags
Politics