NIGERIA'S DEBT REPAYMENT MUST BEGIN WITH THE EIGHT-YEAR ACCUMULATED ESTACODES OF BUHARI AND HIS CABINET!

It had become a permanent culture of civil servants in all former British Colonies all over the world - Nigeria not excluded - to always collect foreign tour allowances known as ESTACODES which they cleverly accumulate in secret accounts in anticipation of comfort in retirement!

The out-going President, retired Major General Muhammadu Buhari never missed any opportunity to travel out of Nigeria under the guise of official duties which he could normally delegate his Vice President or ministers to attend BUT foreign journeys attract the estacode (always paid in foreign currencies – mostly US Dollars), “legitimate” official allowances that could not be alluded as corruption)?

The President and his Vice also enjoy 18 jumbo allowances outside of estacodes!
AND THE MILITARY PRESIDENT ALWAYS TRAVELED WITH AN ENTOURAGE OF OFFICIALS NOT LESS THAN 30 TO 40 AT ANY GIVEN FOREIGN JOURNEY!

Estacode, a nomenclature for monetary travel allowance in Nigeria now turned into a colonial heritage and still in practice among Federal, States civil servants, politicians, diplomatic staff etc on foreign official assignments was legitimate during the colonial era; are they still legitimate now?

Nigeria's debt profile which is far above ₦ 40 trillion naira as at Q3, 2022, accumulated through such frivolous journeys by Buhari his entire official and kitchen cabinets who cared less whether the less privileged lived or died!

Between 2015 and 2021 the retired general traveled outside of the country for 52 times and had expended approximately over ₦4 billion naira in junketing across 30 countries in four continents including Africa! And in 2022, the UNGA 77 trip was his 13th in the budget year in which it is estimated he would spend NGN1.5billion, NGN200 less than the NGN 1.7billion budgeted for his international journeys in 2021.

According the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR), estacodes released to Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), under President Buhari’s watch from 2015 to 2021 stood at over ₦3.77 billion naira!

ICIR CORROBORATED BY CURRENCY OPERATIONS DEPARTMENT OF THE CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA ( CBN)!

In its annual report released Thursday 4th November 2021 it was stated that a total amount of USD 3.95 billion was procured in 2019 a loan to fund estacode personal travel allowances to MDS and also to fund Bureau de Change operations.

Also there were allegations of gross abuses in the forms of over-bloated, forged, improvised, nonexistent but fake journeys for purpose of fraudulently collecting estacode allowances during foreign travels in both the Public and the Civil Service circles!

To date no public servant or politician has been brought to justice and the racket has continued unabated with impunity!

From all indications the official fraud is enjoying Government approval otherwise Buhari’s Presidency would not have approved a comprehensive review of the Financial Regulations in respect of the various allowances being enjoyed by personnel of MDAs including the estacode!

QUESTIONS:
1) Was the Committee set up by the Accountant General of the Federation (AGF), in November 2021, to consider, review and recommend appropriate Duty Tour, Estacode, Repatriation and Overtime Allowances and also consider, review and recommend appropriate Imprest amount for relevant public servants and political office holders – A RUSE OR A SCAM?
2) What social economic assistance have the poor Nigerian masses benefited from buhari’s foreign trips these past eight years? Instead insecurity is working on his head in all the 774 local government areas of Nigeria and the people are crying to a president who is insensitive to their plight.

BUHARI BEGS FOR FOREIGN DEBT FORGIVENESS FOR NIGERIA AND OTHER DEVELOPED COUNTRIES AT UNGA 77!

Major General Muhammadu Buhari attended recent 77th United Nations general assembly in New York and pleaded that unsustainable external debt service suspension as well as outright cancellation should be considered 4 countries facing fiscal and liquidity challenges.
In his words: “Indeed the multi-faceted challenges facing most developed countries have placed a debilitating chokehold on their fiscal space.

“This equally calls for the need to address the burden of unsustainable external debt by a global commitment to the expansion and extension of the Service Suspension Initiative to countries facing fiscal and liquidity challenges as well as outright cancellation for countries facing the most severe challenges.”

Earlier in his speech Major General President Muhammadu Buhari harped on the negative global effects of Covid 19 which constituted a threat that could not be contained within national borders and how States tried to meet and mitigate the challenge.

He also touched on the adverse effects of CLIMATE CHANGE which “fuels conflicts and complicates FOOD SECURITY” and claimed that in 2021 his administration adopted a national climate change strategy which aimed to deliver climate change mitigation in a sustainable manner.

He believed that Africa and other developing Nations produce only a small proportion of greenhouse gas emissions compared to industrial economies yet Africa was hardest hit by the consequences of climate change through sustained droughts in Somalia and floods of unprecedented severity in Pakistan!

The President believed that the rocketing energy cost worldwide were in part the product of conflict and supply disruptions to Europe and the Americas and suggested that the World Body in collaboration with the upcoming COP 27 would help to galvanize the political will required to drive action towards the fulfillment of the various existing climate changing initiatives.

WHEN DOES THE OLD GENERAL EXPECT THE DEBT CANCELLATION OF OVER NGN40 TRILLION NAIRA ACCRUED BY NIGERIA?

The Nigerian President no doubt made a poor presentation of the DEBT CANCELLATION BRIEF at UNGA 77 because he addressed the wrong gathering!
He made a laughing stock of himself and his entourage because even the WORLD BANK, CHINA, THE UNITED STATES Banking Sector etc, were aware of large-scale corruption with official impunity among the three tiers of government in Nigeria and also prodigality with which the politicians who have cornered ANNUAL BUDGETS and spend all proceeds of the crude oil among themselves and their cronies!
Civil Service personnel and the entire Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), happen to be a FORCE to be reckoned with in the looting of the “TREASURY SINGLE ACCOUNT, (TSA) EXCESS CRUDE, SOVEREIGN WEALTH, SERVICE WIDE VOTE ACCOUNTS – all of which at Ground Zero!

Nigerians have been shamelessly told by the Minister for Finance and National Development that monies would be sought to fund the 2023 Budget Estimates of NGN 19.76 trillion in which NO FRESH CAPITAL PROJECT would be entertained!

OUR VERDICT:
President Buhari's bank accounts and those of his official/kitchen cabinets, the Aso Rock Cabal, all members of his close/extended family, Special Advisers and all the All Progressives Congress APC politicians who have brought the Nigerian economy to its knees through massive corruption SHOULD BE FROZEN without delay by the EFCC FOR ALL ESTACODES TO BE RECOVERED with other illicit funds to be put together to begin the process of DEBT SERVICING/REPAYMENT.
He MUST not retire to Daura with those Estacodes while the TALAKAWAS suffering Nigerians masses, die in abject poverty.


I am, yours sincerely, Dr. David B.A. Olufon. 08130669886, 08080243066. g-mail-dvdolufon@gmail.

Oh my goodness