Jonathan Minister Approached Me With Offer To Return N50 Billion – El Rufai Tells New York Times
Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir Elrufai has revealed that a former
minister under the Goodluck Jonathan administration is frantically
trying to return a stolen sum of N50 billion or $250 million to the
Nigerian government.
Elrufai, who spoke to internationally acclaimed publication, The New
York Times, said the minister approached him wanting to return the loot.
He however did not disclose the name of the minister.
His claims and other revelations about the effects the
anti-corruption body language is having on the misguided political elite
are contained in Saturday edition of the paper.
Read the article:
Private jets that used to crowd the airport here have been
grounded, their wings clipped by the new government’s crackdown on
corruption. Rolls-Royces, Range Rovers and Jaguars are gathering dust in
the showroom of this capital’s top car dealer. Luxury villas are left
unsold, as is the fine Italian marble used to bedeck the homes of
Nigeria’s newly rich.
Since assuming power in May on a pledge to root out the graft
that has long permeated Nigeria, President Muhammadu Buhari has squeezed
the flow of public funds in an effort to clean up Africa’s biggest
economy.
He has put many public projects on hold to review the contracts,
and ordered many government ministries, departments and agencies to
consolidate their bank accounts for closer monitoring of financial
transactions. He has overhauled the management of the state oil company,
while also moving to retrieve stolen money.
In recent days, the campaign escalated with the arrest of two
high-profile figures: Diezani Alison-Madueke, the former oil minister
whose five-year tenure was marred by recurring accusations of widespread
theft; and the chairman of a Nigerian oil company. Both were held as
part of inquiries into corruption and money laundering.
“Those actions will sustain the fear that the culture of impunity
is over and government’s will to prosecute is strong,” said Adams
Oshiomhole, a governor leading a national panel investigating federal
graft. “There’s no more free money flowing because of the attempts by
the president to block it, but also the fear that, ‘If I’m caught now,
I’ll be prosecuted.’”
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, is the continent’s top
oil producer and one of the biggest producers in the world. Yet
corruption has undermined the nation, helping to keep 68 percent of its
population living on less than $1.25 a day and perpetuating instability,
especially the long-running conflict with Boko Haram.
Whether Mr. Buhari can maintain the pressure against graft, much
less transform a society where corruption thrives at all levels, is far
from clear. Over the years, previous assaults on the problem have
fizzled. Mr Buhari himself first rose to power in a military coup in the
1980s, waging a self-described “war against indiscipline” during his
short reign as military ruler.
But this year, with national frustration boiling over corruption
and the rampages of Boko Haram, the extremist group that has terrorized
northern Nigeria, Mr. Buhari won the presidential election in March as
the head of an opposition alliance that is tasting power for the first
time. Now many politicians and businessmen say he is facing growing
pressure to reward the faithful.
The widening anti-corruption drive has chilled the economy
elsewhere in the country, but nowhere has its impact been felt as keenly
as here in the capital.
At Coscharis, the leading dealer of luxury cars here, Happiness
Adibe has been going through her worst year in her nine years as a
saleswoman. Last year was her strongest: a record number of buyers,
mostly businessmen and politicians, spent hundreds of thousands of
dollars buying Range Rovers and Jaguars from her. Seventy percent of her
customers paid cash.
“There’s no money now, no money,” Ms. Adibe said. “Contracts
aren’t going on now, everything is standing still. When contracts are
going on, people are getting contracts and doing their, you know,
thing.”
At Royal Choice — a gated community of villas selling for up to
$1.8 million each, some furnished according to a London, New York, Dubai
or Shanghai theme — Joshua Bialonwu has not scored a single sale since
the new government took over. Under the previous administration,
customers often bought villas in cash.
On a tour through Royal Choice’s eerily deserted streets and
inside several villas, each empty except for a guard and a cellphone
charging from a wall, Mr. Bialonwu explained why sales had dried up.
“With the uncertainties of the government presently, nobody knows
how much you might be asked to return,” Mr. Bialonwu said. “So you want
to hold on to as much as you can.”
Negotiations over what to do with ill-gotten gains are taking place quietly.
Nasir El-Rufai, the governor of Kaduna state and a member of the
panel investigating graft, said that associates of one former minister
had approached him with an offer to return $250 million.
“When you say you want to refund, it means you are admitting that
you took what was not yours,” Mr. Rufai said. “I said, ‘I am a
governor, I am not involved in this. I will pass on your message.’
[i][/i]
Many officials and businessmen said that graft under former
President Goodluck Jonathan reached levels not seen since military rule
ended in 1999. Billions of dollars are believed to have disappeared from
activities related to the oil industry, the source of 80 percent of all
government revenues.
Last year, after the governor of the country’s central bank
asserted that billions of dollars in oil revenue owed to the treasury
was missing from public coffers, he was removed from his post.
The missing funds could amount to “$10.8 billion or $12 billion
or $19 billion or $21 billion — we do not know at this point,” the bank
governor wrote to the Nigerian Senate before his dismissal, adding that
the problem could “bring the entire economy to its knees.”
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, the state oil
company, spent half of what it collected on its own operations, Mr.
Rufai said.
“The corrupt try to take money under the table,” he said. “Under
Jonathan’s government, it is done so openly, with records. People
actually document the diversion of funds. You just wonder, what is wrong
with them.”
The loss of oil revenues has left many of Nigeria’s 36 states
bankrupt or nearly bankrupt, unable to pay salaries.Private jets that
used to crowd the airport here have been grounded, their wings clipped
by the new government’s crackdown on corruption. Rolls-Royces, Range
Rovers and Jaguars are gathering dust in the showroom of this capital’s
top car dealer. Luxury villas are left unsold, as is the fine Italian
marble used to bedeck the homes of Nigeria’s newly rich.
Since assuming power in May on a pledge to root out the graft
that has long permeated Nigeria, President Muhammadu Buhari has squeezed
the flow of public funds in an effort to clean up Africa’s biggest
economy.
He has put many public projects on hold to review the contracts,
and ordered many government ministries, departments and agencies to
consolidate their bank accounts for closer monitoring of financial
transactions. He has overhauled the management of the state oil company,
while also moving to retrieve stolen money.
In recent days, the campaign escalated with the arrest of two
high-profile figures: Diezani Alison-Madueke, the former oil minister
whose five-year tenure was marred by recurring accusations of widespread
theft; and the chairman of a Nigerian oil company. Both were held as
part of inquiries into corruption and money laundering.
“Those actions will sustain the fear that the culture of impunity
is over and government’s will to prosecute is strong,” said Adams
Oshiomhole, a governor leading a national panel investigating federal
graft. “There’s no more free money flowing because of the attempts by
the president to block it, but also the fear that, ‘If I’m caught now,
I’ll be prosecuted.’”
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, is the continent’s top
oil producer and one of the biggest producers in the world. Yet
corruption has undermined the nation, helping to keep 68 percent of its
population living on less than $1.25 a day and perpetuating instability,
especially the long-running conflict with Boko Haram.
Whether Mr. Buhari can maintain the pressure against graft, much
less transform a society where corruption thrives at all levels, is far
from clear. Over the years, previous assaults on the problem have
fizzled. Mr Buhari himself first rose to power in a military coup in the
1980s, waging a self-described “war against indiscipline” during his
short reign as military ruler.
But this year, with national frustration boiling over corruption
and the rampages of Boko Haram, the extremist group that has terrorized
northern Nigeria, Mr. Buhari won the presidential election in March as
the head of an opposition alliance that is tasting power for the first
time. Now many politicians and businessmen say he is facing growing
pressure to reward the faithful.
The widening anti-corruption drive has chilled the economy
elsewhere in the country, but nowhere has its impact been felt as keenly
as here in the capital.
At Coscharis, the leading dealer of luxury cars here, Happiness
Adibe has been going through her worst year in her nine years as a
saleswoman. Last year was her strongest: a record number of buyers,
mostly businessmen and politicians, spent hundreds of thousands of
dollars buying Range Rovers and Jaguars from her. Seventy percent of her
customers paid cash.
“There’s no money now, no money,” Ms. Adibe said. “Contracts
aren’t going on now, everything is standing still. When contracts are
going on, people are getting contracts and doing their, you know,
thing.”
At Royal Choice — a gated community of villas selling for up to
$1.8 million each, some furnished according to a London, New York, Dubai
or Shanghai theme — Joshua Bialonwu has not scored a single sale since
the new government took over. Under the previous administration,
customers often bought villas in cash.
On a tour through Royal Choice’s eerily deserted streets and
inside several villas, each empty except for a guard and a cellphone
charging from a wall, Mr. Bialonwu explained why sales had dried up.
“With the uncertainties of the government presently, nobody knows
how much you might be asked to return,” Mr. Bialonwu said. “So you want
to hold on to as much as you can.”
Negotiations over what to do with ill-gotten gains are taking place quietly.
Nasir El-Rufai, the governor of Kaduna state and a member of the
panel investigating graft, said that associates of one former minister
had approached him with an offer to return $250 million.
“When you say you want to refund, it means you are admitting that
you took what was not yours,” Mr. Rufai said. “I said, ‘I am a
governor, I am not involved in this. I will pass on your message.’
[i][/i]
Many officials and businessmen said that graft under former
President Goodluck Jonathan reached levels not seen since military rule
ended in 1999. Billions of dollars are believed to have disappeared from
activities related to the oil industry, the source of 80 percent of all
government revenues.
Last year, after the governor of the country’s central bank
asserted that billions of dollars in oil revenue owed to the treasury
was missing from public coffers, he was removed from his post.
The missing funds could amount to “$10.8 billion or $12 billion
or $19 billion or $21 billion — we do not know at this point,” the bank
governor wrote to the Nigerian Senate before his dismissal, adding that
the problem could “bring the entire economy to its knees.”
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, the state oil
company, spent half of what it collected on its own operations, Mr.
Rufai said.
“The corrupt try to take money under the table,” he said. “Under
Jonathan’s government, it is done so openly, with records. People
actually document the diversion of funds. You just wonder, what is wrong
with them.”
The loss of oil revenues has left many of Nigeria’s 36 states bankrupt or nearly bankrupt, unable to pay salaries.
