The Accountant General of the Federation recently managed to claim that the “limited nature of government revenue and contending issues requiring attention” prevented the payment of the monthly N35,000 promised to Federal workers. In reality, there is plenty of government revenue, it is just being looted.

The state and Federal governments have more money than they know what to do with. The FAAC Committee recently distributed N1.1 trillion. Last year the governments received more than for any year for a decade, at least. January’s FAAC meeting distributed 25% more than last years’ record average. They could have distributed N1.7 trillion, or well over 50% more, but decided to save this surplus in the Excess Crude Account.
https://guardian.ng/news/govt-generates-n1-7-trillion-in-dec-shares-n1-1-trillion-among-federating-entities/

In addition, there is the money claimed to be saved from ending the fuel subsidy. This was said to be over N4 trillion in 2022 and N3.4 trillion in the first half of 2023. This is equivalent to around 15% of the budget for 2024. What happened to all these savings?

The official rate of exchange of the naira to the dollar depreciated from N416 in June last year to over N1,000 towards the end of January, 2024. A depreciation of over 150%. This is due to the corrupt elite exporting their loot – without that oil exporting countries have strong currencies. At the same time, the black market rate was over N1,400. So anyone buying dollars at the official rate of N1,000 can immediately sell them for N1,400, 40% profit – a huge window for corruption.

Every devaluation leads to higher rates of inflation. On the bright side it also provides more money that governments could use to increase the minimum wage or pay the doctors.

NNPC Ltd should have released its Audited Financial Statement (AFS) for 2022 in June 2023. Its excuse was that it had no substantive Board of Directors. This suggests another huge pipe for looting.

A colleague of mine said he would not join a trade union because we say “alooter continua”. I immediately corrected him by saying, “it is Aluta Continua”. He said, “na the same”. I asked him what he meant and he told me, when looted funds are recovered and again looted by those who recovered it, it is alooter continua. In that sense, Buhari must be a very good “Comrude”. The recovered fund looted under Jonathan were re-looted under him. “Alooter continua, Empty treasury ascerta” (thanks to Abdulrasheed Rabana).

The head of the Police Pension Board was recently found guilty of looting N23.3 billion. He had to forfeit property worth N325 million and pay N250,000 to avoid prison. So he made a profit of over N22 billion!

The state owned refineries are not working due to looting. The power stations are not working because of looting. Ajeokuta steel mills are not working because of looting. We do not have a decent minimum wage because of looting. We are poor because they are looting. We need to fight with our trade unions for a proper minimum wage to take back some of their loot.

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