Wike, it claims, “diverted resources from the TETFUND and swindled the Universal Basic EducationFund of massive amounts of money in addition to diverting huge sums from the Ministry of Education budgets in four years while he served as the minister of state for education and later as acting Minister of Education”.
“The immediate effect of effectively implementing the above recommendations will be a single official foreign exchange market with all players (buyers, sellers, dealers, government) adhering to the same set of rules and regulations. The parallel market would die a natural death, and there will be an efficient pricing mechanism with a single exchange rate. This in turn will lead to an effective and efficient management of our foreign exchange reserves, and will enhance the attraction of foreign exchange into the system from other sources. Putting the tax and incentive mechanism in place will have the combined effect of encouraging supply and penalising the frivolous use of our scarce foreign exchange. This also creates a new source of revenue for the government, and acts as a check on those who would normally cheat on import-duty payments. The economic impact will be appreciation or depreciation, but not a devaluation of the value of the naira. Any attempt to devalue the currency for the time being would amount to treating an ailment without a proper diagnosis. In fact, many of these issues have been with us for over 35 years. They are not going away until we take a firm stance towards rendering the underground foreign exchange market insignificant and irrelevant” – An absolutely miniscule part of Femi Pedro’s wide-ranging suggestions in his article: “Buhari And The Solution To The Currency Quagmire”.
I suggest that the article be immediately brought to the attention of President Buhari who Nigerians know has the needed political will to rescue the economy.
ASUU – the association of Nigerian university teachers – has fought truly momentous battles whose scars litter literally everywhere – from grave yards to exiles: from ruptured families to promising lives that got immolated at mid season. Battles against truly demonic, anti-intellectual Heads of State posing as friends of the intellect and adorning their rule with some of the glittering lights of the academic elite nor can I ever forget the peremptory expurgation of the teachers and their families from their homes by our youngest ever Head of State. If anything surprises me about this principled, long suffering association, it is the fact that none of its executive leadership, which always bear the brunt of its many struggles, has deemed it fit to commission that its titanic struggles be etched in a book for history. That struggle was at a time demonised by a truly demagogic bureaucracy as a fight for increase in salaries to buy fridges – a wicked parody of ‘fringe benefits’ which resonated very badly with a largely illiterate Nigerian population. Happily, this turned out a Pyrrhic victory for the regime when ASUU changed tactics and concentrated its struggles, not on benefits, fringe or not, but on the either non-existing, or thoroughly, degraded infrastructure in our institutions of higher learning, when research grants tapped out and sciences were being taught like literature and you could see a First Class graduate of Chemistry who had never seen a spectrophotometer. These went on for many agonising decades, most of them during absolutely brutal and murderous military regimes, but the struggle which saw the federal government capturing state universities amongst universities to be assisted in infrastructural procurement and general amelioration of their facilities, must hold a special place for ASUU. It deserves to be celebrated not only by its members but it must equally be chalked up as one of the greatest achievements of the President Goodluck Jonathan administration, a truly commendable act which was easily explained off by the president himself not only being a PhD degree holder but a former university lecturer.
What followed in the universities were more books in the libraries, generous research grants, increased attendance at learned conferences and a phenomenal increase in ICT procurement in addition to glittering campuses dotted with beautiful new buildings.
Unfortunately, that is where the good news ended, giving way to a still ongoing orgy of harassment and gnashing of teeth; of threats of foreclosure of collaterals by banks, where they have not yet sold them off, as well as a horde of supplier creditors making life an absolute hell for the university contractors who built those eye popping structures who remain unpaid for upwards of 15 -18 months after the universities have taken over the projects, commissioned them at great and grand events and have since put them to use. Unfortunately, the universities are almost completely helpless in pushing the payments; a fact which is sure to make many of their projects suffer in future as contractors would like to insist on better payment terms or deliberately pad their quotes. Many of the contractors are, today, languishing in heavy indebtedness with collateral consequences to their state of health.
Before deciding to write this piece, I made some discreet inquiries and two things emerged: one hopeless, the other not so helpless. The first was that a large portion of the fund most probably suffered the fate of the 2.4 billion dollars earmarked for arms procurement but for which a former National Security Adviser is now standing trial. According to this source, both the presidential campaign, and a particular governorship campaign would not have been half as colourful without the intervention fund being thoroughly misapplied -apologies Admiral Augustus Aikhomu of blessed memory. I was told severally that if this is true, it would not be the former president’s fault if associates, indeed his appointees, decided to help in funding his campaign. Concerning the then Minister of Education, my attention was drawn to what was described as a yet un-rebutted allegation against Governor Wike by The Peoples Coalition Against Corruption, an anti-graft group, which has urged the federal government and anti-corruption agencies to investigate him. According to the group in a statement signed by Peter Iloagbeze, the governor is accused of massive theft spanning five years. Wike, it claims, “diverted resources from the TETFUND and swindled the Universal Basic Education Fund of massive amounts of money in addition to diverting huge sums from the Ministry of Education budgets in four years while he served as the minister of state for education and later as acting Minister of Education”. For both the anti-corruption war, but more for Governor Wike’s integrity, it is my considered view that the anti-corruption agencies should investigate these serious allegations. It is, however, apposite to add that my inquiries further revealed that while contractors hired by TETFUND had been paid, those to be paid directly through the intervention fund, which was warehoused directly at the ministry, remain unpaid.
The information which should, however, bring smiles to the contractors’ faces, particularly in a government being driven by the CHANGE mantra, is the one to the effect that the money is not lost after all. Rather, I was told, the money was placed in an escrow account at the CBN. It is hoped that this is the true position of things. I also learnt, authoritatively, that the Ministry of Education has, in fact, conducted appropriate inspection tours of the various projects which, in any case, would not have been accepted, commissioned and put into use by the universities, if they were in any way substandard.
All that remains to be done now, one would hope, is for the Hon. Minister for Education to ensure that everything is done to end the contractors’ misery by effecting their payments without any further delay. It should be one more reason for them, and Nigerians, in general, to thank God for both the CHANGE and the Change Agent.
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