No oil money, no assets sale, no borrowing!

Of Nigeria’s N6 trillion 2016 budget, about N820 billion was expected to come from oil related revenues. About half of the budget, or N2.9 trillion it was estimated would be derived from non-oil revenues (N1.45 trillion) and projected independent revenues (N1.51 trillion). About 30% of the budget or N1.8 trillion was earmarked as capital expenditure. […]

Of Nigeria’s N6 trillion 2016 budget, about N820 billion was expected to come from oil related revenues. About half of the budget, or N2.9 trillion it was estimated would be derived from non-oil revenues (N1.45 trillion) and projected independent revenues (N1.51 trillion). About 30% of the budget or N1.8 trillion was earmarked as capital expenditure. The deficit was to be financed by N894 billion domestic borrowing and N900 billion foreign borrowing, totalling N1.8 trillion. Also, N1.36 trillion was put aside for domestic and foreign debt service.
Nigeria suffered double jeopardy as prices of crude oil not only collapsed in the international market but the volume of oil export also plummeted. For no sooner was Goodluck Jonathan defeated in the 2015 election than his kinsmen, the Ijaws, mostly in Bayelsa and Delta states, under the spooky name, Niger Delta Avengers (NDA), began to sabotage pipelines conveying crude oil exports and gas to power stations. To date, the country is reported to have lost N2 trillion owing to the destruction of oil flow stations and pipelines by the so called NDA, the armed wing of the defeated Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Part of their demands as articulated by their governors, the Niger Delta governors, when they first met with Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, a few months ago, was that corruption charges against their kinsmen should be dropped. And there are many Ijaws detained or under trial for allegedly stealing from the public treasury – Government Ekpemupolo, alias Tompolo, now in hiding; ex-Minister of Petroleum, Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke; former Special Assistant on Domestic Affairs to former President Goodluck Jonathan, Waripomei Dudafa; Azibaola Roberts (accused of “criminal diversion of $40 million he received from the former National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki”) and others.
If Goodluck Jonathan is against what his kinsmen in NDA are doing, he should loudly say it now since the brigands are claiming that they are out to avenge his defeat in the last election.
There appear to be concerted efforts by some forces to ensure the failure of the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari by blocking its access to funds. The serious shortfall in revenue means that the government is unable to execute its national development projects. Having realised this situation, government proposed the sale of national assets in order to raise additional resources for these projects and also shore up the value of the Naira. But as usual, the forces cried out loud; is the government silly? How can they sell our national assets? And so they frustrated that brilliant suggestion to sell some of our assets to address some of our immediate needs. We are now behaving like the ‘wise’ man that prefers to remain hungry by keeping his trinket in the pocket instead of selling the damn thing and using the money to eat.
Not that the proceeds from the sale of these assets are going to be recycled for recurrent expenses, no. The government was going to use the money, as it has said, to rebuild roads, construct new railways, power stations, etc. For as the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun said, we have to spend our way out of recession, so we must find the money from wherever. Therefore, to revitalise the economy in the absence of petrodollars, President Buhari has to do something unprecedented, like raising money from the disposal of existing assets or borrowing money from whoever will lend us.
That’s why Nigerians were bewildered when the Senate, a fortnight ago, out rightly rejected the President’s request to borrow $29.9 billion to fund the administration’s national development projects. Since the rejection, the Senate President has met President Buhari about three times in the inner recess of Aso Villa to discuss the strategy for representation of the request. Initially, the rejection jolted the Presidency but unfolding events prove that it was done for well calculated reasons.
First of all, the rejection has repositioned Bukola Saraki as the ultimate underwriter of President Buhari’s biddings in the Senate. Mr Saraki has now transposed himself in the unfolding political developments as Buhari’s archetypal ally and a well-meaning tactician. I shall address this particular issue in a subsequent article to demonstrate a newly found political companionship between Buhari and Saraki.
Suffice it to say that when President Buhari re-sends the letter requesting Senate’s approval of the foreign loans, it will be granted. What will change is the location some of these loans will be applied, in the South East. In the rejected request, there was little or nothing for the South East. Ordinarily, after five years of their son’s Presidency, the people of the South east ought not to complain about bad roads and unemployment; but the truth is that it was a mere sentiment as even the 2nd Niger Bridge which Dr Goodluck Jonathan had perennially promised them since his days as Vice President, had remained ineffectual. We shouldn’t have been blackmailing Buhari as having abandoned the bridge’s construction; we should have been talking about its commissioning.
Time has come for the Senate to assist Buhari achieve a meaningful tenure. There is simply no money to fund development projects in this country. The country is broke; there is either inadequate crude oil to export or the prices it fetches are depressed. At the beginning of the year, our Senators gave Buhari a blank cheque to borrow money and fund development but the President thought he could raise enough by minimising waste, alas the deficit is large. As a peripheral bourgeois economy, we have to borrow to revive and modernise the economy. Since there is not enough money from oil export, since there are not additional resources from sale of national assets, the Senate should give President Buhari the necessary authority to take the loan and utilise it judiciously.