FIGHTING CORRUPTION IS DANGEROUS: THE STORY BEHIND THE HEADLINES BY NGOZI OKONJO-IWEALA - A REVIEW

Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s mother was kidnapped in their village of Owashi-Uku in Delta State of Nigeria in December 2012 and the ransom demanded by the kidnappers was nothing short of her daughter’s resignation from her position as Finance Minister. Wasn’t that odd? What was she doing in that office that some forces desperately wanted her out? This book was able to highlight some. When President Goodluck Jonathan first offered her the position of Finance Minister, she was bullied not to accept the offer, painting so many bad images of her, manipulating facts and making her previous assignments in Nigeria as worthless and even harmful. She further narrated in details, the scam behind fuel subsidy in which oil marketers increasingly defrauded Nigerian treasury of billions of Naira in the name of subsidizing fuel, some of which were not even imported to Nigeria. 

Fuel subsidy was completely phased out in 2004 when she was the Finance Minister for President Olusegun Obasanjo, but in 2006, as oil prices gone up, the subsidy had to be restored leading to N261 billion in subsidy. In 2011, the fuel subsidy had skyrocketed to a whopping amount of N1.73 trillion. This made Ngozi to have a thorough look into the system which delayed subsidy payments. This singular action caused a lot of discomfort to oil marketers who subsequently transferred their aggression to her and her family which even triggered her mother’s kidnapping. It will interest you to know that the modalities to phase out subsidy in stages were meticulously panned then, which instead of spending this huge amount of money to few marketers in the name of subsidy, Federal Government (FG) would divert the fund into stuff that Nigerians can directly benefit from as a form of cushioning the high price of the oil. A list of items was lined up under Subsidy Reinvestment & Empowerment Programme (SURE-P) and public enlightenment was going on when all of a sudden, the timeline was shrunk and premature announcement of the removal was made by President Goodluck Jonathan in January 2012 courtesy of ill-conceived advice from some Governors who were against some of the Ngozi’s economic team policy especially that of Sovereign Wealth Fund.

Ngozi was an Economic Adviser to President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2000. She was then his Finance Minister from 2003-2006 and resigned as Minister of Foreign Affairs when she felt her impact was limited by certain political force. She was invited by President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua in 2007 but declined as she was recently promoted to Managing Director, Operations in World Bank and she claimed it would be unprofessional to leave within months of her assumption. President Goodluck Jonathan was lucky to summoned her after his election as President in 2011 and worked with her as Finance Minister. She was attacked serially mainly by Sahara Reporters even before she accepted GEJ's offer and she couldn't allow such intimidation to stop her from giving back to her country once again. She was majorly convinced by GEJ that he wasn't asking her to work for him but for her country, in a first phone call she received from him for she never knew him before then. GEJ was worried on creating jobs for youths, wealth creation especially through non-oil sector, and to curb revenue leakages which he thought Ngozi was a better fit for the job.

It will interest you to know that part of the projects to curb revenue leakages were Treasury Single Account (TSA), Government Information Financial Management System (GIFMIS) and Integrated Personnel Information Management System (IPPIS) and these all came into fruition during her first tenure as Finance Minister with the help of United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Department for International Development (DFID) and World Bank. These policies were blocked from seeing the light of the day perhaps due to lack of political willingness from the FG and some vested interest that benefitted from the status quo which employed largely the use of cash and therefore making it difficult to track their financial shenanigans.

The book is truly saddening for it did not just uncover corruption dealings that continue to cripple our economy but highlighted how these practices became systematically enshrined in every aspect of the governance at all levels. The blow Ngozi received from States Governors was equally huge as she insisted on maintaining the Excess Crude Account (ECA) which was created during her first term in office. The Account was used to save the excess crude oil fund (realized from the difference between the benchmark price of oil in the budget and what is obtainable in the market). This, had served as a buffer during 2008-2009 financial crisis, but when she came back to Finance Ministry in 2011, the Governors insisted that no saving was needed for the rainy days for the day was already raining. They fought her with all their might despite the fact that they received 48% of the total revenue generated in the federation, yet, the money in the ECA was still being chased to increase their return. Media attacks came in handy on Ngozi’s personality especially by the then Edo State Governor, Adam Oshomole. Not just the ECA case but the Finance Ministry ensured that no state further gets loan domestically until their requests were being subjected to sustainability analysis by Debt Management Office (DMO) to ascertain their capability to manage the debt and its repayment. This too, was received with sad face by the Governors’ community especially in the wake of 2015 election when more than a dozen of states rushed to get loans in an attempt to complete their projects. 

Another clash was with National Assemblies. The legislators succeeded in making assignments in Ministry of Finance a living hell for Ngozi especially in budgeting procedure. The legislators did not just make the budget review a hostage situation until their selfish demands were met, but an avenue of exhausting national treasury unreasonably, sometimes liaising with executive arm through their sectoral budgets. She further narrated her ordeal with Hon. Abdulmumin Jibrin, a House Chair of Appropriation Committee and their media smear campaign against her name. Though she reported that he later became supportive after seeing the negative effects she had been admonishing manifesting when the oil price began to drop. The oil price benchmark and exorbitant allocation for National Assemblies were also another tough hurdle she crossed with the members. It's like most of the public office holder only care for their pockets with no sense of preserving the economy for the subsequent generation. Just like in the case of the oil companies which did not just fraudulently shipped oil that Federal Government subsidized for its citizens to neighboring countries such as Benin and Ghana, but claimed subsidy on oil that was never even shipped to Nigeria. This led to the establishment of Ad-Hoc House Committee headed by Hon. Farouk Lawan to verify the actual subsidy requirement between 2009 – 2011 which did a pretty great job. 

The committee identified that indeed there were subsidy claims for products not delivered, overcharging government by oil marketers, requisition of foreign exchange for import of refined products, with the foreign exchange diverted to other uses, unauthorized deduction by Nigerian National Petroleum Commission (NNPC) itself (which Ngozi narrated that the NNPC was structured with little or no transparency on its finances and transactions). The committee further noticed a sum of N1.07 trillion to have been misappropriated between 2009-2011 which ordered its remittance to the treasury by NNPC, Petroleum Products Pricing Regulation Agency (PPPRA), oil marketers and all the government officials that were involved. And more important recommendation was the restructuring of NNPC and Petroleum Ministry to make their operations more transparent. But this came with sad ending as Hon. Farouk Lawan was caught on camera receiving bribe ($millions) from Mr Otedola, insinuating that the name of his two oil companies would be removed from the list that will be sanctioned for receiving millions of dollars in foreign exchange for oil imports that were not made. The committee’s report, despite its importance was shadowed by this saga.

Worth mentioning here is the Presidential Task Force that was chaired by Minister of Transportation; Sen. Umar Idris with Ngozi as co-chair to work on decongesting the port which upon their investigation confirmed that it took an average of 39 days to clear a cargo from Nigerian ports. When other countries have 24 – 48 hours cargo clearance.  The Task Force was able to achieve seven-day clearance in 12 months while devising strategies to achieve forty-eight hour in a long term, but this come with consequences as many vested interests were affected. There were 13 government agencies which constituted more check points that had to be reduced to 7. Operating hours that was 9am to 4pm had to also changed to 24hours as obtainable in other countries, and the problematic Cargo Tracking Note (CTN) that was collected by Nigerian Port Authority (NPA) was another duplicate cost as the cargo was being tracked by Nigerian Customs Service from its destination, The CTN totaled about N210 million a year, yet it has never been remitted to the Federation Account and thus was recommended to be abolished which was approved by the president in October of 2011. 

These reforms were tagged harmful and Ngozi was castigated by vested interest especially for the NPA CTN. A top presidential aide called her to the villa and asked her to rescind the CTN but made him understand that it was approved by the president which he insisted that she should find a way around it. This aide was so powerful that even Ngozi refused to mentioned his name in her book, he denied her entrance to the Presidential Villa for early morning prayer meeting for the next three days with First Family as she used to. He further denied her entrance into the villa through the gate which Heads of States used to pass when she accompanied the Managing Director of International Monetary Fund (IMF); Madame Christine Lagarde in December of 2011 that was accorded as Head of State. On getting to the gate which Governors access the Presidential Villa, they were further denied entrance on his direction that they had to follow the regular gate, and walked to get to the president for their meeting which cost them about 15minutes lateness, a conduct Ngozi described as almost causing international embarrassment. Imagine an aide treating a minister in this regard. These were parts of some bureaucratic intimidation of  fighting corruption in Nigeria.

The case of $20million missing or unaccounted for from the country’s oil’s account from the period of Jan 2012 to July 2013 in which one incident led to another until the then Central Bank Governor; Sunusi Lamido Sunusi was removed was also discussed in details. It’s indeed frightening to fight corruption in Nigeria as the vested interests are always prepared to go to any length to cover their hideous conducts and these encounters by Ngozi that was documented in 2018 could serve as viable lessons to anyone that find themselves in similar position to not give in to the satisfaction of corrupt influence and public office holders. 

The book also contains various scams both in the public and international level which Ngozi was able to thwart and it will go down in the history that Dr Ngozi Okonj0-Iweala and President Goodluck Jonathan administration has really put in some serious work in fighting corruption. The book will continue to be an eye-opener in terms of fighting corruption fiscally in Nigeria and worth noting here was the unflinching support of the president to execute such policies. We are all aware that subsidy is already deemed untenable and President Elect Ahmed Bola Tinubu made a proclamation of its removal. President Muhammadu Buhari has now put a plan that the removal will be effective come June 2023 and $800million will be distributed to 50million Nigerians to cushion the effect.

April 7, 2023