WorldStage Newsonline– Nigeria’s Vice president, Prof Yemi Osinbajo has further gave on insight into the reason behind the country’s recursive growth, saying it “is not just a matter of our relying heavily on a single commodity, it is the fact that the proceeds of that single commodity were regularly hijacked consistently by a few.”
Making further clarification of his claims at the Monday’s the Quarterly Presidential Business Forum that the promoters of a strategic alliance contracts with NNPC/NDPC made away with over $3 billion, he said while the past government’s total spends on capital in some critical areas was only N153 billion, over N150 billion was released and shared within three days in 2014.
In his address at the 2018 Ogun State Investors’ Forum, in Abeokuta on Tuesday, the Vice President said most of the proceeds from the nation’s oil in the past went to rent seekers, who invested little in industry and production.
He listed of possible roads that the $3 billion stolen from the NNPC/NDPC contract could have built to include Abuja-Kaduna-Kano road ; 2nd Niger Bridge; Enugu-PH road; East-West road; Sagamu-Ore-Benin road; Kano-Maiduguri road; Abuja-Lafia-Akwanga-Keffi road; Lagos-Abeokuta (old road).
“That is what 3 billion US dollars that some people made away with could have done, and that is why it is important for us to understand that our country’s problems must be analysed from the perspective of what the real issues are. We talk of the Nigerian economy without talking about the blight that was caused years ago by people simply stealing the resources of this country,” he said.
“In one single transaction, the sum of N100 billion and 289 million dollars in cash were released a few weeks to the 2015 elections, it was not released as such, it was the money embezzled.
“When you consider that, in 2014, when oil prices were an average of 110 dollars a barrel, only N99 billion was spent on Power, Works and Housing. Agriculture and Transportation got N14 Billion and N15 billion respectively.
“So, the total spends on capital in these critical areas I have mentioned was only N153 billion, and over N150 billion was released and shared within three days. This is enormity of what we are talking about; there is no country in the world that can survive on grand corruption on the scale that we are talking about. And that is why it is important for the Federal Government of Nigeria under President Muhammadu Buhari to reverse that grand corruption.”
However, the said the current government had in 2017 spent N1.3 trillion on capital, the highest spend in the history of the country while earning almost 60% less than we were earning in 2014.
“Today, with less revenue but no leakage, we have increased funding capital in Power, Works and Housing, Defence, Transportation and Agriculture by as much as 400%.
“Today, we are two quarters out of the recession and firmly on the path of recovery. Our external reserves are at their highest levels in five years. Inflation has dropped for 13 consecutive months, manufacturing confidence is on the rise and in 2017, Nigeria moved ahead 24 places on the World Bank’s annual Doing Business Index. And the World Bank reported that Nigeria is among top ten reforming economies in the world.”
