Charles Soludo’s Missing Trillions – Fact Check


“The smarter the journalists are; the better off society is. For to a degree, people read the press to inform themselves – and the better the teacher, the better the student body.”
Warren Buffet
As Nigerians increasingly express a desire to see the country develop from its years of underachievement, education must rank as one of the country’s priorities.
Nigerians must embrace education in its general sense as a form of learning in which effective knowledge, skills, values, beliefs and habits of advanced societies or the society we crave is transferred from one generation to the next, through publications, mass media, storytelling, discussion, teaching, training, research etc
Nigeria’s intellectuals must also educate themselves on the impact of integrity, standards, merit, and responsible values and how these impacts on formative effects on the way a society thinks, feels, or acts.
In this article, I would review the highlights from the conclusion of Charles Soludo’s recent articles “I Stand By My Statements”
Excerpt:
“Let me also state for the avoidance of doubt that I stand by every statement I made in the two articles viz: (1) “Buhari Vs Jonathan: Beyond the Elections”; and (2) “Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and the Missing Trillions”. In particular, I insist that over N30 trillion has either been stolen or unaccounted for, or grossly mismanaged over the last few years. This figure does not include the estimated $40.9 billion (N8.6 trillion at parallel market exchange rate or nearly two years’ Federal Government budget) which the African Union’s (AU) recent report”
I would proceed to review the points raised, relying entirely on irrefutable facts, verifiable sources, and records, starting with (2).
“The African Union’s (AU) recent report” Charles Soludo refers to is the “Illicit Financial Flows (IFF) – Report of the High Level panel of illicit Financial Flows from Africa”, commissioned by the AU/ECA Conference of Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development.
There is nowhere in the 126-page report where a mention was made about $40.9 billion stolen, unaccounted for or missing from Nigeria. Here is a link to the full report ILLICIT FINANCIAL FLOWS

The IFF Figures on Africa and Nigeria
The IFF is a report from research on illicit financial flows as a development challenge for Africa. The report estimates that Africa loses more than $50 billion annually in IFFs.
The report defines Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs) as: Money that is illegally earned, transferred or utilized. These funds typically originate from three sources: commercial tax evasion, trade misinvoicing and abusive transfer pricing; criminal activities, including the drug trade, human trafficking, illegal arms dealing, and smuggling of contraband; and bribery and theft by corrupt government officials.
The Cumulative IFF estimated for Nigeria between 1970-2008, the 38-year period, which was reviewed by the study, was US$217.7 Billion, a 30.5% share in Africa’s Total IFFs.
The Report highlights two main cases for Nigeria;
1) “The case of a former governor of a state in Nigeria who used different shell companies, multiple bank accounts and the movement of money through several jurisdictions to launder ill-gotten wealth was a notorious example that came up in the course of the Panel’s work. This particular case spoke to issues of governance as well as the role of the banks in facilitating such suspicious transactions”.
2) “The Panel is particularly encouraged by the action taken by the US government under its Kleptocracy Initiative in early 2014 to freeze and return to Nigeria assets of not less than $458 million stolen by the late Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha, with another estimated $100 million also restrained We feel that such action underscores the imperative for political action by developed countries to fight”
Instructively both cases highlight the involvement of the banking system and Central Banks in IFFs, by omission or commission. Curiously the IFFs mentioned in (1) occurred while Charles Soludo was the Governor of the Nigerian Central Bank.
Effective actions taken by countries to stem some aspects of IFFs in both cases above have included financial reforms from the Central Banks (eg. Lamido Sanusi led Central Bank of Nigeria) and legislative actions (Patriot Act, USA. Eliminated Shell banks from the financial landscape).

Where are the bogus figures coming from?
Clearly the figures being quoted and its attribution to the current Nigerian Finance Minister’s watch are false. Charles Soludo, relied on spurious publications by sections of Nigeria’s media notorious for publishing false information.
The figures and slant of the report published in the media referred above were deviously fabricated and fed under false pretext to the public as sourced from a genuine report authored by the best of Africa’s men and women of integrity, values and professionalism.
This trend portends a very sad dilemma for Nigeria, as the people read the press to inform themselves, the teachers, in this case, are the major source of regression.
This sad perversion of information is quite regular with the Nigerian press.
In subsequent articles; I would review allegations of missing trillions of Naira (Charles Soludo), missing billions of dollars (Lamido Sanusi), mostly from Oil and Gas revenues, the facts, figures and reality.
I would also provide detailed insights on how the Nigerian Oil and Gas industry functions, the myths, the realities, the opportunities for graft, illicit operations, leakages, the complicity and role of the executive arm of government, agencies and employees, security, businessmen, politicians etc
The purpose is to provide accurate information to engender an issue-based discussion from a foundation of knowledge based on the true situation and facts


By Samuel Diminas

hmmmm,
Nigerians are becoming wiser day by day
I like that

I think Nigeria name didn't just get to the top of that list is the top priority of Mr president. TAN programs