BUHARI OPERATING NIGERIA IN AN ATMOSPHERE OF IMPUNITY —FALANA

I subscribe to the socialist ideology and I believe very strongly and vehemently that that is the only political system that can transform our country from poverty to prosperity. There is no way you can travel the neo-colonial peripheral capitalist route and achieve meaningful development in Nigeria. It has never worked since 1960. We are now jumping from frying-pan to fire.

I do not agree with the sharing of the Abacha loot to the poor. But how much was actually shared to the poor? $322million dollars out of how much? From my last calculation, this country has recovered close to $4 billion dollars from the Abacha loot, which nobody has accounted for. So, if you are now giving people a chicken change (Laughs), we cannot complain. More so, that was the conditionality for the release of the sum of $321 million. It was agreed that it wold be given to the poor since the bulk of the loot was alleged to have been re-looted.  But that has nothing to do with socialism. Frankly speaking, a socialist government would have invested the money in the provision of education or health care for the people.

No. Socialism is not about giving handout. It is about empowering the people to be able to take care of their family members.  But under a peripheral capitalist system poverty-induced projects are executed by the government to give the false impression that the government cares for the people. For instance, all the state governments in the country dispatch people to Mecca and Jerusalem yearly in the name of religious pilgrimage annually. So, if you are spending such millions of Naira to send people to Jerusalem and Mecca, that is a dole out and an irresponsible way of empowering the people. Why not set up businesses for them with that fund, so that when they make money and can travel to any part of the world. It amounts to a waste.

It’s going to be an extremely difficult for the programme being implemented by the government to make much impact on the people because the money being voted for it, is a tip of the ice berg. How much is voted for the empowerment programme? So, in the midst of grounding poverty, how can you make any impact? So, we only talk of the $321 million of the Abacha loot dedicated to the poor and no one is talking of the bulk of the money that was shared in the office of the National Security Adviser and the Office of the President under some previous regimes.

At a time, the government claimed to have voted N500 million dollars for the provision of infrastructural facilities in all the six geo-political zones and the execution of those projects were reportedly monitored by World Bank. Of course, it turned out a fluke because some organizations went round and could not locate the projects. So, a petition was sent to the World Bank which investigated the fraud and regretted ever endorsing those phantom projects. It has been a case of looting the loot under previous administrations from 1998 to 2015. 

At least, the Buhari regime has said this is what we have received and we are taking it to the poor. Of course, Nigerians are entitled to demand an account at the end of the day. But I am just saying that these policies have nothing to do with socialism. Tokenism is not socialism (laughs). Socialism is the full empowerment of the people to manage and run their own affairs. No doubt, the allegation made by the wife of the President or the First Lady is very serious. I want to believe that the matter is being addressed because I just read that the school feeding has been suspended in some states on account of fraud.