http://www.vanguardngr.com/2015/02/ngozi-okonjo-iweala-missing-trillions-1-charles-soludo/

I read some of the responses to my article,
“Buhari vs Jonathan: Beyond the Election”, and
I want to thank everyone who has contributed
to the debate. I am glad that the debate has
finally taken off. I have decided, for the
record, to re-enter the debate if only to set
some records straight and hopefully elevate the
debate further. Whom do I respond to? First,
let me thank Gov Kayode Fayemi for his very
mature and professional response on behalf of
the APC. It forms a great basis for deepening
the conversation. Pat Utomi, Oby Ezekwesili,
Iyabo Obasanjo, and thousands of other
patriotic Nigerians have raised the content of
the debate. Femi Fani-Kayode made me laugh,
as usual. The Gov. Jang faction of the
Governors’ Forum played the usual politics,
although I know what most of them think
privately. Who else? Oh, Peter Obi. Well, since
he can’t write and designated Valentine as
usual to write for him (who never disputed the
NBS statistics that Obi broke world record in
the pauperization of Anambra people but
instead focused on lies and abuses) I won’t
dignify him with a response here. His third
class performance in Anambra will be the
subject of a comprehensive article later.
Here, I will focus on Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s
response (as Minister of Finance and
Coordinating Minister of the Economy—CME
and hence on behalf of the Federal
Government). Since I have known her, out of
deep respect, I have never called her by her
name: I call her Madam. I must state that I
have great pains seeing myself on the opposite
side of the table with Madam, in this way. I
respect you, Madam, and will always do. If you
read my article of September 2010 (before you
became Minister), the tone and elucidation
were as strong as the current one. It is my
honest effort to ensure that our choice of
leaders is based on rigorous scrutiny of what
is on offer. Part of my frustration is that five
years after, everything I warned about has
come to happen and we are conducting our
campaigns as if we are not in crisis. As a
concerned Nigerian, I have a duty to speak out
again. Regrettably, you have taken it very
personal.
I am not bothered about the personal abuses:
I actually expected worse. What name has the
government not called President Obasanjo or
any person who has dared to disagree with it
of late? Anyone who disagrees with the
government must either be ‘insane’ or have a
‘character’ deficiency or must be ‘looking for a
job’ or ‘without honour’, or a ‘charlatan’.
Yesterday, Sanusi alleged that $20 billion was
missing and he was accused of gross financial
mismanagement, recklessness and poor
governance to the point of being the first
governor of central bank to be suspended from
office. Today, he is the good one; and for
daring to award an “F” grade for our economic
performance, Soludo has become the ‘worst’
and ‘without character’ or perhaps ‘looking for
position’ (Lol!). Some days ago, a former
president was called ‘a motor park tout’ and
‘un-statesmanly’ just for disagreeing. This “how
dare you criticise us” mind-set of the
government is dangerous for our democracy.
In this Part One of my planned three part
series, I will restrict it to the main issues you
raised. I will not bother about the malicious
attacks on my person. For me, it is nothing
personal. In early 2011, I had a similar heated
exchange with then Finance Minister Segun
Aganga. But when the Nigerian economy was at
stake and he invited me to a stakeholders
meeting in his office (as Minister of Trade and
Investment) to discuss Nigeria’s response to
the ruinous EU- Economic Partnership for
Africa (EPA), I flew into Nigeria for that (at my
expense)— the first and only time I have been
to any government office to discuss policy
since I left office. It is about Nigeria. I will, as
expected, remind people like you of the salient
aspects of my record of public service in
response to your charge; challenge your claim
to debt relief, and your reason for not saving;
highlight your forgery of economic statistics
and the lies in your response; but most
importantly re-focus our attention to the
historic mismanagement of our economy which
you carefully avoided. I will show that while
you are introducing austerity measures and
soon to immiserate the citizens, our public
finance is haemorrhaging to the point that
estimated over N30 trillion is missing or stolen
or unaccounted for, or simply mismanaged—
under your watch! We can’t go on like this, and
I am convinced that an alternative future is
possible. Can we have a public debate on this
alternative future? The issues at stake are too
grave to be trivialized through name calling. As
I write, the naira exchange rate to the dollar is
at N215 (from N158 a few months ago) and
unless oil price recovers, this is just the
beginning. For the sake of Nigeria, I won’t
keep quiet anymore!
Let me start with Madam’s rather comical, wild
judgment on my tenure of office which I
believe to be totally false and baseless. I
apologise upfront that in the process of making
a ‘personal defence’, it is difficult to avoid a
rather uncomfortable emphasis on “I”. I did
not want that but since Madam has dragged us
this low, I have little choice but to do so in the
next few paragraphs—just to keep the record
straight!
In my view, there are three criteria for
evaluating a public officer’s stewardship: the
evaluation by his employer; the satisfaction of
the public he served; and the hard facts of
performance. As I will show on these three
counts, I am convinced that I left a world
record of public service, and a thousand
Okonjo-Iwealas cannot re-write that history. I
served Nigeria under two presidents (Obasanjo
and Yar’Adua) and as my immediate bosses,
below are their written testimonials of my
record.
Said President Obasanjo (December 2004):
“Charles Soludo is a true Nigerian. He is the
sort of Nigerian that we all know we can rely
on. Among his numerous virtues is COURAGE. I
have found in him a man who can take tough
and realistic decisions, stand his ground,
educate others on the salience of his decision,
and work very hard to ensure that the decision
is efficiently and effectively implemented. His
dedication to duty is first rate. His leadership
qualities are admirable and his willingness to
listen and learn is simply infectious. Professor
Soludo has within a short time emerged as one
of the leading lights of our nation. Not because
he has a godfather but by sheer hard work,
loyalty, dedication to duty, commitment to the
nation, creativity, and undiluted association
with the reform agenda….”
President Yar’Adua (May 2009) had the
following to say about the Central Bank of
Nigeria under my leadership:
“… the CBN has performed creditably well in
delivering on its core mandates. This is
especially even more so in the last five years.
Most people would agree that without the
successful banking consolidation and effective
management of our foreign reserves, the
current global crisis would have shaken the
financial system and our national economy to
their foundations with calamitous
consequences”.
In the President’s special letter of
commendation after the completion of my
tenure of office, President Yar’Adua (June
2009) had the following to say to me:
“As your tenure as Governor of the Central
Bank of Nigeria comes to a glorious end, I
write on behalf of the Government and people
of Nigeria to place on record our debt of
gratitude to you for your dedicated service and
uncommon sense of duty over the past five
years. I am confident that your worthy
antecedents in the CBN and in prior
appointments in the service of our nation
remain sources of inspiration to an entire
generation. As I wish you even more
astounding successes in the years ahead, it is
my fervent hope that you will readily avail us
of your distinguished service when the need
arises in the future”.
To the best of my knowledge, President
Obasanjo has not changed those views even
after ten years. The views of my two bosses,
not the emotional outburst of an angry person
desperate to get even, are what count.
How did Nigerians evaluate my public service?
Unfortunately, we do not have scientific
opinion polls on job approval ratings for
individual public officers. But if the public
opinions of individuals and organized groups
(labour, employers, depositors, borrowers,
stakeholders of the financial institutions,
newspaper editorials, investors, etc) as
expressed in thousands of newspaper/magazine
clips during and after my tenure are anything
to go by, then 82% of the public largely agree
with the sentiments expressed by my two
bosses. Your views belong to the other 18%
which is okay, after all, no one is perfect. Five
Nigerian newspapers and magazines
simultaneously named us “man of the year” in
one year— unprecedented in Nigeria’s history.
I do not talk about hundreds of awards and
recognitions by various segments of our society
(during and even after service) for “excellent
public service”. I was particularly touched by
the historic award by the staff union of the
Central Bank and the tears in the eyes of many
as thousands of the staff gave me a standing
ovation as I walked the aisle after my brief
farewell speech.
Certainly, the international community
(investors, bankers, scholars, donors, media,
etc) took serious notice of the revolution in
Nigeria’s monetary and financial system. I am
recipient of five international awards as global
and African central bank governor of the year,
not to mention dozens of other recognitions
(even after leaving office). The London
Financial Times described us as “a great
reformer”. Even as the global economic and
financial crisis raged in 2008, the United
Nations General Assembly appointed me to
serve on the Commission of Experts to reform
the international monetary and financial
system. You don’t appoint someone who has
‘mismanaged’ his national financial system to
reform the global system. For 8 years until
2012, I served on the chief economist
advisory council (CEAC) of the World Bank, and
together with two Nobel Prize winners in
economics and other experts we met
periodically and advised two presidents and
two chief economists of the World Bank, and
in 2011, I served on the External Advisory
Group of the IMF. Again, these are not
positions for ‘mis-managers’. Since I left office,
I have been advising countries and central
banks; and there is hardly any two months I
don’t consult/advise on banking/financial and
monetary policy. I have given these
illustrations to make the point that for every
one Okonjo-Iweala’s attempt to rewrite history,
there are thousands who disagree.

Now, to some skeletal facts of our stewardship!
I will be brief as I have a whole book to tell
my story. As chief economic adviser, I had
advised that our banking system could not
support the private sector-led economy
envisioned under NEEDS. When I assumed
office at CBN, I inherited 89 rickety, mostly
family banks (all of which put together were
not up to the size of number four bank in
South Africa). Many were insolvent, with
depositors’ money trapped, and 20 more about
to collapse. To get a credit of $300 million
probably required all the banks to syndicate it.
For me, there was a national emergency. I
drafted a 13-point reform agenda, discussed
and agreed all the specifics with the President,
and his VP; as well as my management team at
the CBN, and we swung into action. President
Obasanjo promised 100% support and actually
delivered 1000%— which was decisive. I
apologize to you Madam because I did not
brief or inform you about it. We just wanted to
keep it confidential given the sensitivity of the
announcement. It is on record that you never
supported it.
It was both a revolution and a war and most
people thought it was “impossible”, but thank
God we succeeded. For the first time in
Nigeria’s history a policy of that magnitude was
announced and deadline kept with precision.
We were courageous to revoke the licenses of
14 banks, including those of my friends, in one
day. The FT-Banker concluded that the scale,
precision, and cost of the transformation were
unprecedented in the world. Before then,
Malaysia had the least cost of banking
consolidation at 5% of Malaysian GDP. It did
not cost Nigerian taxpayers one penny.
Twenty-five new, stronger banks emerged but
the powerful idea behind consolidation ignited
something even more powerful—‘the race to
the top’. Banks raised more capital, and even
banks like First Bank, Zenith, GTB, etc that did
not merge with others went on capital raising
several times. The consequence was higher
levels of capitalization and within two years, 14
Nigerian banks were in the top 1000 banks in
the world and two in the top 300 (no Nigerian
bank was in the top 1000 before I came). Even
after I left office, still 9 banks were in the top
1000. Our vision was to have a Nigerian bank
in the top 100 banks within 10 years. As I see
the new Access bank; Zenith, GTB, Fidelity,
Diamond, UBA, FBN, FCMB, Skye, Stanbic IBTC,
Union, Ecobank, etc, I cannot but feel that we
have taken giant steps forward.
Deposits and credit soared (from barely N1.2
trillion to over N7 trillion); new technologies
(ATM and e-banking) boomed, and banks had
57,000 new jobs; mega businesses emerged
(ask any major operator in the Nigerian
economy their experience with banking and
credit before and after Soludo —the Dangotes,
Arik, MM2, oil and gas operators; etc); capital
market boomed and dominated by the banking
sector. It was a new dawn for Nigerian private
sector. I have heard Dangote twice say that he
would not be near as big as he is today
without the banking consolidation. Many other
stakeholders still say it today. FDI and
portfolio inflows flooded into Nigeria. The
world celebrated, and one single
transformative idea has changed the face of
the private sector and economy forever. Banks
became Nigeria’s first transnational
corporations with about 37 branches outside
of Nigeria.
Nigeria survived the global crisis because of
this, and it is the banking sector that has
largely been powering the economic growth
you claim (compare banks trillions of naira
credit for investments in the productive sector
with your government’s miserable expenditure
on critical infrastructure and investment; much
of your borrowing – bonds – is from the
banks). Your privatization of power sector,
several PPP projects on infrastructure, etc, are
now possible because of the mega banks.
Today, Nigerian banks syndicate multi-billion
dollar loans— unthinkable before. Madam, if
the consolidation was ‘mismanaged’, there
would not have been any bank to start with in
the aftermath of the global crisis— as
President Yar’adua correctly pointed out. Even
you, during a recent presentation at the
Banquet Hall in Abuja advertised consolidation
as a historic achievement. How can you
recognize a ‘mis-managed’ project as an
outstanding achievement? As we say in Igbo,
you can’t cover the moon with your palms.
Let me be clear: the quantum size of the new
banks following consolidation presented
challenges of risk management and
supervision. We deployed all we had and
overworked the CBN staff. The carry-over of
bad loans from the consolidated banks was
quickly cleaned up. To the best of my
knowledge, we instituted stringent regulatory
and supervisory regime (consistent with best
practices at the time). We even had resident
examiners in the banks and required bank MDs
to personally sign their reports to CBN. I recall
that the former MD of GTB complained of
“regulatory intrusiveness”. To our credit, non-
performing loans (NPL) came down from 22%
in 2003 and 2004 to 6% as at 2008. Anywhere
in the world, a central bank that brought NPL
from 22% to 6% over a four year period does
not look like one with a loose supervisory
regime. Name other developing countries that
performed better, Madam. So, on point of fact,
Madam lied. Yours was a reckless assertion
without basis by a Finance Minister.
The banks in Nigeria were supervised by the
CBN and NDIC, but other institutions—
international firms which audited them,
international rating agencies which also
examined their books, capital market operators
since most were listed companies — all had
oversight. I put on record that there was never
any information/report of infractions by any
bank which was brought to my attention and
which we did not act upon decisively during
my tenure. I heard the comment that some of
the bank MDs were my friends. Well, my
response is that perhaps as CME you should
kill all your friends operating in the economy
or become their enemies. For the record, my
successor audited all the banks and none of
my so-called friends was indicted. It speaks
volumes. Indeed, it is also a fact that the
alleged personal criminal infractions (including
lapses in corporate governance Madam alluded
to) by some bank CEOs were found out, only
AFTER they had been removed from office. My
successor told me that the comprehensive
audit of the banks did not reveal such
infractions. Of course, you must be God or
have a special tip-off from inside to get to
such information while the MDs are in office.
Unfortunately, all over the world, no financial
system has succeeded in routing out all
criminal behaviours by the operators. So,
Madam, I challenge you to provide one shred
of evidence that ‘there was no separation
between regulators and regulated’ or be
honourable enough to retract your reckless
statement.
What happened? The unanticipated and
unprecedented crisis of 2008/09 hit the world.
More than 40 US and European banks either
collapsed or were shaken badly (remember the
Lehman Brothers, Fannie Mae and Freddie
Mac, Wachovia, HSBC, Lloyds TSB, Citibank,
Goldman Sachs, even UBS, etc) and hundreds
of billions of dollars were spent to bail them
out. The contagion effects spread like a wild
fire, destroying national stock markets and
banks. The nascent (big) banks in Nigeria faced
sudden multiple shocks— liquidity, exchange
rate, oil price, capital market, etc. As oil prices
collapsed, loans to oil and gas became non-
performing overnight; loans to the capital
market became non-performing overnight; etc.
Our first priority was to save the entire
banking system and the economy from
systemic collapse. I assured Nigerians that no
bank would be allowed to fail, and not many
people know what it took to achieve it. Once
we had navigated through the unexpected /
unprecedented turbulence, we laid out a
comprehensive plan to clean up the debris
which we presented to stakeholders in Lagos
(March 2009). I had pleaded with the Senate to
pass the AMCON bill which we sent to them in
2004. But I had a comprehensive plan to finish
the clean-up with or without AMCON by the
end of 2009, including second round
consolidation and a N500 billion fund (my
book will detail all these). I left behind an 11-
volume document of the Financial System
Strategy 2020 (FSS2020) which has remained
the policy roadmap for the CBN/financial
sector since I left office.
I have two analogies for our experience. Ours
was really like an airplane that was cruising
and suddenly meets an unexpected and
unprecedented turbulence. After the pilots and
the crew succeed in navigating through the
potential crash and probably land the airplane,
people look in and start blaming the crew for
the broken tea cups, chairs, and drinks that
fell during the turbulence as evidence that the
crew never kept the airplane clean or serviced
it. My second analogy is that of a sudden
earthquake in a region it was never expected
and some houses collapsed. All of a sudden,
the housing authority is to blame for not
requiring earthquake-proof foundations for the
houses. Well, my legal experts call it force
majeure, an act of nature!
To be fair, after every crisis, there are lessons
(and my book will detail what, with benefit of
that experience, we should have done
differently). Risk management— which has
always been there— now took a new centre
stage all over the world following the crisis.
But for anyone to suggest that CBN under me,
for one minute, took its eyes off the ball is, to
say the least, ludicrous. The US financial
system literally crippled the world costing
America hundreds of billions of dollars but no
one has suggested that Alan Greenspan is no
longer the great maestro!

AMCON is a big topic (which I will address at a
later date) but her claims show either
ignorance or mischief. She claims that N5.7
trillion of AMCON funds was used to rescue
banks and the ‘bond issued’ as ‘cost to
taxpayers’. Really? I will deal with the AMCON I
envisaged and the AMCON under you later but
let me state that even if 100% of the banks’
NPL was offloaded on AMCON, it would not be
up to N5.7 trillion. Enough said for now. The
fact is that the Federal Government has not
put a penny in the AMCON fund: the banking
system is financing itself, and together with
the sinking fund by banks, AMCON surely can’t
default (thanks to consolidation that the banks
are now big enough to cough out such funds
to solve the system’s problem). Did you intend
to deceive the readers by refusing to tell them
that much of the AMCON fund is ‘investment’
and not ‘expense’. Am sure you heard the
IMF’s alarm about moral hazard? If you want,
we can have a focused debate on AMCON.
Next, let me briefly respond to a few
outlandish claims. She brags about ‘single-digit’
inflation rate ‘now’ and alleges that when I left
office, inflation was above 13%. I just laughed
at this one. In Nigeria’s history, no governor of
the Central Bank has delivered 24 consecutive
months of single digit inflation as I did until
the advent of the unprecedented global crisis
in 2008. It was not for nothing that the world
cheered us as monetary policy czar, Madam!
Perhaps you are also not aware that we broke
a world record by having a depreciated real
effective exchange rate during a time of export
boom and this was at the heart of our reserve
accumulation and the portfolio/FDI inflows. I
resisted the IMF advice to deplete reserves for
liquidity management, and Nigeria had enough
self-insurance to survive the global crisis. The
opposite has happened under you Madam, and
the Nigerian economy is in trouble. Naira
exchange rate appreciated under me from
N133 to N117 before the global crisis; and
reserves grew to all time high of $62 billion.
For the first time since 1986, the official,
interbank and parallel market exchange rates
converged under me. You can’t match these
records!
I hereby challenge your attempt to blame
others for not saving for the rainy day. It is
not a virtue when you are quick to appropriate
all the credit when things are going well, but
shift the blame when they go wrong. You
blame the state governors— who, according to
you, have taken the Federal Government to the
Supreme Court—not that a Supreme Court
judgment forced your hands. For your
information, the governors have never agreed
to savings and always threatened court action
even under Obasanjo. Why did we save under
Obasanjo but not under Jonathan? Two
keywords explain it: leadership and integrity.
Governor Amaechi said the governors insisted
on sharing the funds because they found out
that you were illegally fiddling with the
savings. So, as Nigerians still wonder, if billions
of dollars are now ‘missing’ under your nose,
why should governors trust you to keep their
money? Do the states that have taken the
federal government to the Supreme Court and
refused to save also include the PDP governors
—who are in the majority? If so, then it is
fatal: even governors of your own party, PDP,
do not trust you to keep their money!
Furthermore, did the governors also stop the
Federal Government from saving part of its
share? If you ran a surplus budget at the
Federal level, you would have had credibility to
blame others or to say they did not listen to
your advice. The key point is that since you
were running huge deficits yourself, it was also
in your own interest to share the ECA. You did
not show leadership or credibility, full stop!
Next, Madam, I was really embarrassed for you
to read that one of the reasons for declining
forex reserves is ‘oil theft’. Under you as
Minister of Finance and coordinator of the
economy, the basket of our national treasury
is leaking profusely from all sides. Just a few
illustrations! First, you admit that ‘oil theft’
has reduced oil output from the average 2.3 –
2.4 million barrels per day (mpd) to 1.95mpd
(meaning that at least 350,000 to 450,000
barrels per day are being ‘stolen’. On the
average of 400,000 per day and the oil prices
over the past four years, it comes to about $
60 billion ‘stolen’ in just four years. In today’s
exchange rate, that is about N12.6 trillion.
This is at a time of cessation of crisis in the
Niger Delta and amnesty programme. Can you
tell Nigerians how much the amnesty
programme costs, and also the annual cost for
‘protecting’ the pipelines and security of oil
wells? And the ‘thieves’ are spirits? Come on,
Madam!
Second, my earlier article stated that the
minimum forex reserves should have been at
least $90 billion by now and you did not
challenge it. Rather it is about $30 billion,
meaning that gross mismanagement has denied
the country some $60 billion or another
N12.6 trillion.
Now add the ‘missing’ $20 billion from the
NNPC. You promised a forensic audit report
‘soon’, and more than a year later the Report
itself is still ‘missing’. This is over N4 trillion,
and we don’t know how much more has
‘missed’ since Sanusi cried out. How many
trillions of naira were paid for oil subsidy
(unappropriated?). How many trillions (in
actual fact) have been ‘lost’ through customs
duty waivers over the last four years? As
coordinator of the economy, can you tell
Nigerians why the price of automotive gas oil
(AGO), popularly called diesel, has still not
come down despite the crash in global crude
oil prices, and how much is being appropriated
by friends in the process? Be honest: do you
really know (as coordinator and minister of
finance) how many trillions of Naira, self-
financing government agencies earn and
spend? I have a long list but let me wait for
now. I do not want to talk about other ‘black
pots’ that impinge on national security. My
estimate, Madam, is that probably more than
N30 trillion has either been stolen or lost or
unaccounted for or simply mismanaged under
your watchful eyes in the past four years.
Since you claim to be in charge, Nigerians are
right to ask you to account. Think about what
this amount could mean for the 112 million
poor Nigerians or for our schools, hospitals,
roads, etc. Soon, you will start asking the
citizens to pay this or that tax, while some
faceless “thieves” were pocketing over $40
million per day from oil alone.
You alluded to debt relief in your response and
tried to take credit. Well, your CV is honest
enough to admit that your two achievements in
office as Finance minister under Obasanjo were
that “you led the Nigerian team that struck a
deal with the Paris Club” and that you
“introduced the practice of publishing each
state’s monthly financial allocation in the
newspapers”. You are right about the two
achievements. Let me put on record that
Nigeria would have secured debt relief under
anyone as Minister of Finance. President
Obasanjo secured debt relief for Nigeria. Much
of his first term was used to get Nigeria back
into the international community and to
campaign for debt relief. Before you were
sworn in as Minister of Finance, President
Bush visited Nigeria and both of us
accompanied President Obasanjo during the
meeting. There, Mr. Bush promised to support
Nigeria with debt relief and asked our
president to ensure that he met the conditions
of the Paris Club. Obasanjo mobilized the
global political support and coordinated all of
us to ensure that the government met the
check-list of ‘conditionalities’ as required. I
spent five weeks in the hotel with my team (as
coordinator/chairman for drafting the National
Economic Empowerment and Development
Strategy, NEEDS).
Some of the reform targets in NEEDS became
the ‘conditionalities’ Nigeria was required to
fulfil to merit debt relief. You and I signed the
various MoU with the IMF on behalf of Nigeria
(the policy support instrument). We had a
great team at work and each member of the
economic team had specific aspects of the
conditionalities to deliver: Bode Agusto was in-
charge of the budget; Oby Ezekwesili held sway
at Bureau of Public Procurement and later
Minister of Solid Mineral, and Education (but
specifically tasked with delivering on EITI and
procurement reforms); Nuhu Ribadu was at the
EFCC fighting corruption; I was at the Central
Bank delivering on monetary policy and
banking reforms; Steve Oronsaye worked hard
to delist Nigeria from the FATF; Nenadi Usman
was in-charge of the parastatals; El-Rufai held
forth at FCT and in charge of public sector
reforms; privatization programme went on,
etc. Did you know that the IMF wrote President
Obasanjo threatening that there would be no
debt relief if the CBN did not meet some
monetary targets, and do you know the magic
we performed to meet them? Can you tell
Nigerians which of the ‘conditionalities’ that
you personally implemented? With the
groundswell of political support and Nigeria
meeting all the ‘conditionalities’, debt relief
was assured.
Your major role as stated in your CV was to
lead the team to negotiate the specific terms
of the relief, having fulfilled the conditions. I
still believe that Nigeria should have gotten far
better terms than you negotiated. Of course,
with your eyes on returning to the World Bank
after office, I did not expect you to boldly
stand up to the donor community in defence
of Nigeria. Was there a conflict of interest on
your part?
By the way, can you tell Nigerians why you
were eased out as Finance Minister and you
cried like a baby begging OBJ to still allow you
remain in the Economic Management team—-
barely few weeks after the debt relief? Why
were you eventually also removed from the
economic management team if you were so
important? Ironically, President Jonathan has
recycled you, with a bigger title and greater
responsibilities. But the difference is that the
team that did the actual work is no longer
there, and the world has seen that the king is
naked.
You are brilliant Madam, but you need serious
help. Having spent all your life in the World
Bank bureaucracy largely in administration/
operations, no one will blame you if your
economics has become a bit rusty. There are
firebrand Nigerians all over the world to draft
to service. It is certainly embarrassing to
Nigeria for you to be bothering World Bank
economists to help you with most basic
economic analysis.
Your response on the poverty issue is deeply
troubling. You accuse me of using “2011
statistics on poverty by the NBS to support his
argument, while ignoring more recent figures”.
At least you did not refute the NBS figure as
valid. In the next sentence, Madam went ahead
to note that “as stated in the Nigeria Economic
Report 2014 by the World Bank, poverty in
Nigeria has dropped from 35.2 percent of
population in 2010/2011 to 33.1 percent in
2012/2013”. Did you notice that you have
quoted two figures for poverty for the same
year as being equally correct? So, for 2011,
was poverty 71% (according to NBS) or 35%
according to the World Bank? To the best of
my knowledge, the last published household
survey by NBS was in 2011. The World Bank
does not conduct household surveys in
member states to determine poverty incidence.
So, when and by whom was the survey that
gave the World Bank figures?
What worries me is that this government is the
first in our history to attempt to manipulate
our national statistics under Okonjo-Iweala.
When NBS published the poverty figures in
2011, she felt indicted and incensed. She
called upon the World Bank to come and
examine the ‘methodology’ and get NBS to
‘review’ its numbers. Oby Ezekwesili (as VP
Africa Region rejected the call to try to tamper
with a country’s statistics). Once Oby left, the
‘World Bank’ started talking about ‘new
figures’, without conducting any new surveys. I
was told about it by a World Bank economist,
and I cautioned that it was a dangerous gamble
that would damage the credibility of the NBS.
If you want to ‘review methodology’, you
conduct another survey but you can’t change
‘methodology’ because you don’t like the
published figures. No government in our
history has tried it: even Sani Abacha allowed a
poverty survey that put poverty at 67% under
his regime. At this rate, who will believe
statistics coming from the Nigerian
government again? Is it now the World Bank
that sits in Washington and allocates poverty
numbers to Nigeria? Something smells here!
Madam alleges that the NBS—as a parastatal
under the National Planning Commission
(under me) departed from the ‘international
standard method of poverty measurement’.
How and when, Madam? I was in office at
National Planning for 11 months from July
2003 to May 2004. A poverty survey was
conducted in 2004 and the results computed
and published in 2005/2006— more than a
year after I had gone to the Central Bank. Or
perhaps, it was a clever way to divert attention
from your manipulation of published economic
statistics. The NBS published its poverty data in
2006 when you were Minister of Finance, and
you did not question the ‘methodology’
because the figures looked good. In 2011, the
poverty numbers (using the same methodology
as in 2005/2006) indicted the government and
suddenly, the ‘methodology’ is wrong.
Interesting times!
Now that you decide which economic statistics
published by NBS to accept and which ones to
‘change the methodology’ to give favourable
figures, you can keep feeding your manipulated
figures to your international media circus for
the vain glorious awards to sustain an empty
hype, while Nigerians groan under hardship.
We can actually ask Nigerians whether they are
getting better off now contrary to your bogus
figures.

Many of Madam’s responses were comical, but
this one is classic. According to her, the chief
economic adviser and NBS “worked hard to
determine how many jobs we need to create in
a year”, and went on to ask, “why didn’t
Soludo do this when he was CEA?” (Lol!).
Madam, any good economist needs less than
10 minutes to compute this figure, not the
(months? of) ‘hard work’ by your team. My
calculation is that the number of jobs Nigeria
needs to create each year to significantly
reduce unemployment rate to sustainable
levels in the next few years is at least 3
million, and not the 1.8 million by your team.
We are talking about the Nigerian economy,
please.
Your magic wand for mass housing is the
Mortgage Refinance Corporation with 23,000
mortgage offers—for a country with 17 million
housing deficit! Then, there is the pedestrian
proposal of a new development bank—
financed with loans from the World Bank, etc?
A World Bank loan to set up another
‘development bank’ where we already have
Bank of Industry, Bank of Agriculture, NEXIM,
Federal Mortgage Bank, etc? People have
totally run out of ideas and can’t see anything
for Nigeria without through the prism of the
World Bank. I will offer you free consultancy
on how to set up a development bank without
a World Bank loan but we don’t need another
one now. I actually gave President Yar’adua a
two page note for a N3 trillion development
fund then, and if we plug your leaking pipes, it
could actually be a N10 trillion Fund. I
envisioned and set up the Africa Finance
Corporation (AFC)—Africa’s premier
infrastructure bank!
Frankly, I don’t understand why you seem
highly troubled that the Soludo you thought
had “disappeared from the political space”
seems to be still around. Well, let me assure
you that I will only ‘disappear’ in God’s own
time. I gave credit to two past presidents who
laid the foundation of the market economy we
operate today. You did not contest or
contradict any of my points. Rather, what you
see is that Soludo must be ‘looking for a
position’. Pity! If I am looking for a position, I
would be running around one of the candidates
now just as you are busy dancing Atilogwu
dance at TAN and PDP rallies, struggling to
keep your job. How Yar’adua drafted me to
contest for governor in Anambra and APGA
leadership as well and how I was “stopped” on
both occasions are in the public domain. But I
am not deterred for one minute. Chinua
Achebe said that on leadership, Nigeria is a
country that goes for a football match with its
10th Eleven. I am proud and happy to have
offered to serve my people, and for the service
of Nigeria, I will do it again and again. How
many times did Abraham Lincoln, Obama,
Reagan, etc contest before they got there? I
actually encourage everyone who believes he/
she has something to offer to get involved or
stop complaining. I am happy seeing the
increasing critical mass of professionals (like
you) now getting involved. It is good for
Nigeria!
What is at stake is the survival and prosperity
of Nigeria. Next elections are critical, and for
me the key is the ECONOMY. We must offer
Nigerians clarity on the choices before them.
Can I propose a three-way debate with you
(representing PDP/Federal Government),
nominee of APC (Utomi or Fayemi? or any
other), and myself (as independent citizen— I
don’t belong to any of the two). Let us have
two bouts of debate between now and 12th
February, 2015 focusing on: CBN/AMCON and
the financial system (if you want); our
economy and its outlook, and agenda/
alternative paths to sustainable prosperity post
elections. Choose the dates and times, and for
the sake of Nigeria, I will fly in. You can invite
any of your international media friends as
moderators. I feel the pain of the 180 million
Nigerians whose tomorrow you have carelessly
rendered bleak, and when I think of what the
missing trillions could do for them, it becomes
extremely urgent that we all must deepen the
debate. Eagerly waiting for your response,
please!

A rather lengthy piece,I'll say.Worth the read though,our country need serious help.
And if this is Soludo auditioning for a part in the next dispensation,as some will accuse,he's going about it right.These are the issues we should be talking about,not age or certificate.

Sanusi has informed us.
Esekwesili hs told us.
Soludo s saying it.
Utomi also hs nt remain silent.
Mind u, they r all economists. But madam Ngozi wil nt stop showing us diluted progress charts! Who s deceiving who?
It s left to us to either embrace d much needed CHANGE or continue lamenting d poor state of d economy
CHANGE s INEVITABLE
#SAIBUHARI/OSINBAJO
*By d way, as we r getting close 2 d election day, pls do remember ds
quote
"If I’m voted into power within
the next four years, the issue of electricity will become a
thing of the past. Four years is
enough for anyone in power
to make significant improvement and if I can’t improve on electricity
within
this period, it then means I cannot do anything even if I
am there for the next four
years.” said President Jonathan in Ethiopia 2011
Do you believe President Jonathan saying he cannot do
anything if elected for a 2nd
term? If you believe him, then get your PVC intact and vote him out come FeBUHARI 14

lobatan!! The wind of change has blown the yansh of the fowl. This is the type of transformation jonathan and Pdp is giving us.