₦airaland Forum

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Seun

Ihaveleftnaija:
Fake outrage. The masses are only mad because they have no chance to be part of the looting gang. If given a chance to benefit from the corruption, they'd gladly take the offer too.lol

Nigeria assembled the greatest looters to finally finish off the country.

We need South Africa prayers country has been captured by the biggest crooks the world has ever known.

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[quote author=Justiceleague1 post=126785709][/quote]

Nice2023:
A country that needs money is spending like never before in our history.

E choke

Corruption capital of the world with unrepentant looters.

Nigeria’s government has come under fire over a budget that included a 6 billion naira ($6.3 million) presidential yacht and luxury cars, as the country grapples with mounting debts and a cost-of-living crisis.

Lawmakers rejected the plans for a presidential yacht before approving the N2.1 trillion ($2.7 billion) supplementary budget on Thursday, following a public outcry. The money was allocated instead to a student loan program.

The budget still allocates funds for purchasing SUV vehicles for the presidency, amounting to N2.9 billion ($3.6 million), and to cover the cost of renovating the president’s residential quarters, estimated at N4 billion ($5 million).

It also includes official vehicles worth N1.5 billion ($1.9 million) for the First Lady’s Office, despite the fact that Nigerian laws do not formally recognize this office.

A ‘spending problem’
Nigerians, many of whom who are struggling to make ends meet, reacted in anger to the proposed budget, prompting the lawmakers to make changes.

“Nigerians are facing some of the harshest economic realities of their existence. It shows a remarkable lack of empathy for the President to spend so profligately at a time when soldiers fighting the war on terror are dying and should be better motivated to build morale, pensioners are being owed, civil servants take home pay can no longer take them home, and fuel and food inflation is approaching 30%,” said former presidential aide Reno Omokri in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Anti-corruption activist Yomi Ogunsanya told CNN the budget “insults the sensibility of Nigerians,” and called plans to renovate the president’s residence and buy new SUVs “wasteful.”

“These are wasteful spendings… Nigeria doesn’t have a revenue problem; we have a spending problem.”

Government ‘hypocrisy’
Other analysts say it is “hypocrisy” for the government to spend on luxuries while impoverished citizens suffer hardship caused by the president’s economic reforms.

More than 80 million Nigerians live on less than $2 a day, representing “the world’s second-largest poor population after India”, according to the World Bank.

“Does it make sense that our government would borrow money to finance their ostentatious and luxury lifestyles at a time the president urged the pauperized nation to tighten their belts?” Nigerian lawyer and political analyst Ken Eluma Asogwa asked during a phone interview with CNN from Abuja.

“It is very provocative that amid all these fiscal challenges, the federal government is bent on wasting resources on mundane things … and maintenance of the luxury lifestyles of its functionaries.”

Presidential aide Bayo Onanuga said in a statement issued before the yacht was removed from the budget that it was “an operational naval boat with specialized security gadgets suitable for high-profile operational inspection and not for the use of the president.”

Onanuga added that “the naval boat was ordered by the navy under the previous administration.”

Nigeria owes over a billion dollars, according to its debt management office, and plans to borrow more this year.

It’s not immediately clear if the supplementary budget will be partly funded with borrowed money. CNN has reached out to the budget office for clarity.

Local media reported Thursday that the Nigerian House of Representatives reallocated the amount for the presidential yacht to the student loan scheme before passing the spending bill.

The supplementary budget was also approved by the country Senate after MPs from both parliaments merged their report on the budget.

Onanuga, who is Tinubu’s Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, did not comment on the government’s plan to acquire luxury vehicles for the presidency.

However, CNN has reached out to the presidency for comment.

Economic woes
Nigerians have been grappling with above-average inflation for years.

However, the devaluation of the local currency, which has pushed it to record lows against the dollar, has led to even more price spikes and greater hardships.

Nigeria’s imports-driven economy relies on the dollar for international trade. In June, the Nigerian government announced it was lifting controls on foreign currencies, an economic reform it said would enable the local currency exchange freely against the dollar. But this has further weakened the Nigerian naira, which currently exchanges at over N1000 to a dollar on the black market.

Nigeria’s inflation rate hit 26.72% last month - its highest level in 20 years. Food inflation also rose to more than 30% year-on-year in September, 1.3% higher than the previous month. Transport costs had already risen sharply after Tinubu ended a fuel subsidy during his inaugural speech in May, saying it was unsustainable and a drain on public finances.

In an Independence Day address in October, Tinubu asked Nigerians to make sacrifices until his economic reforms began to take effect, urging them to “endure this trying moment.” However, many have pointed out that no attempts have been made to curb the huge costs of its government.

Tinubu runs a 48-member cabinet that data intelligence company Stears says is the largest of any Nigerian president since the country’s return to democratic rule in 1999.

Last month, Nigeria’s Senate unveiled plans to acquire luxury vehicles for its 469 members despite the country’s struggling economy. Sunday Karimi, who heads the Nigerian Senate’s services committee, told local media that the decision was made because of the bad state of the roads in the country.

According to Karimi, senators “need the vehicles for oversights, to travel all over our constituencies,” adding that “If you look at Nigerian roads all over the federation, we have a serious problem because… most of our roads are terribly bad,” he said.

Anti-corruption activist Ogunsanya told CNN that Nigerians were yet to reap the benefit of monies saved from the removal of the fuel subsidy.

“You said there’s no money, you want to remove subsidy. You have removed it, and people are still feeling the impact. And then that same money, instead of channeling it to productive ventures and see how it can ameliorate the sufferings of the people, it is just (being used) for their own selfish benefits to live large in luxury,” he said of the government’s actions.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/03/africa/nigerians-outraged-over-presidential-yacht-intl/index.html#:~:text=Nigeria's%20government%20has%20come%20under,cost%2Dof%2Dliving%20crisis.

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Fantastically corrupt failed state.

Comedy: France Returns $150M Abacha Loot To Minister That Helped Abacha Launder.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iymGNTP3mP0

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ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Nigeria’s lawmakers on Thursday approved the new government’s first supplemental budget, which includes huge allocations for SUVs and houses for the president, his wife and other public officials, sparking anger and criticism from citizens in one of the world’s poorest countries.

In the budget presented to lawmakers to supplement the country’s expenditures for 2023, the government had allocated about $38 million for the presidential air fleet, vehicles and for renovation of residential quarters for the office of the president, the vice-president and the president’s wife — even though her office is not recognized by the country’s constitution.

Before the budget was approved, and facing increasing criticism, lawmakers eliminated $6.1 million earlier budgeted for a “presidential yacht” and moved it to “student loans.”

A Nigerian presidential spokesman said President Bola Tinubu had not given approval for the yacht, whose allocation was provided under the Nigerian Navy’s budget.

The country’s National Assembly recently confirmed that more than 460 federal lawmakers will each get SUVs — reportedly worth more than $150,000 each — which, they said, would enable them to do their work better. Local media reported that the lawmakers have started receiving the vehicles.

“All of this speaks to the gross insensitivity of the Nigerian political class and the growing level of impunity we have in the country,” said Oluseun Onigbinde, who founded Nigerian fiscal transparency group BudgIT.

The allocations reminded many Nigerians of the economic inequality in a country where politicians earn huge salaries while essential workers like doctors and academics often go on strike to protest meager wages.

Consultants, who are among the best-paid doctors in Nigeria, earn around $500 a month. After several strikes this year, civil servants got the government to raise their minimum wage to $67 a month, or four cents an hour.

Such steep expenditure on cars in a country where surging public debt is eating up much of the government’s dwindling revenues show its “lack of priorities” and raises questions about the lack of scrutiny in the government’s budget process and spending, said Kalu Aja, a Nigerian financial analyst.

Kingsley Ujam, a trader working at the popular Area 1 market in Nigeria’s capital city of Abuja, said he struggles to feed his family and has lost hope in the government to provide for their needs.

“They (elected officials) are only there for their pockets,” said Ujam.

It is not the first time Nigerian officials are being accused of wasting public funds.

That tradition must stop, beginning with the president “making sacrifices for the nation, especially as vulnerable people in the country are struggling to make ends meet,” said Hamzat Lawal, who leads the Connected Development group advocating for public accountability in Nigeria.

He added that Nigeria must strengthen anti-corruption measures and improve governance structures for the country to grow and for citizens to live a better life. “We must also make public offices less attractive so people do not believe it is an avenue to get rich,” he said.

While Nigeria is Africa’s top oil producer, chronic corruption and government mismanagement have left the country heavily reliant on foreign loans and aid, while at least 60% of its citizens live in poverty.

Austerity measures introduced by the newly elected president have drastically cut incomes and caused more hardship for millions already struggling with record inflation.

https://www.thestar.com/news/world/africa/nigerias-government-budgets-for-suvs-and-presidents-wife-while-millions-struggle-to-make-ends-meet/article_a28e11f7-9600-598d-9e29-caa388652a59.html

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wittywriter:
Vagabonds In Power.




Wittyness

Fantastically corrupt failed state

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