Battle of two truth benders: Soludo versus Okonjo-Iweala - 2... by Dele Sobowale

Among adults, the Minister who counsels professionalism had just demonstrated that she lacks it. Soludo might be a failure, as CBN Governor, and there is considerable evidence that he was, but that is not the answer to what happened to about N30 trillion ALLEGED missing under Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s watch as Federal Minister of Finance and CME.In fact, her dismissal of Soludo’s performance as “failure” is tainted with malice. The CME had never, until now, made any comment regarding the banking “Con-Soludo-tion” programme. Her silence could only be attributed to motives that were neither professional nor patriotic. She should have told us this long ago – not now when it serves her private interests.
Right now, for her, “the path of professionalism” requires that she either refutes the claim with facts and figures or, failing that, resign honourably. No Minister of Finance, in a democracy, can reply a citizen’s query with abuse – even if the individual has failed himself in public service. His disappointing performance does not in anyway stop him from exercising his rights to question the government. If Madam does not like to answer questions, including unpleasant ones, about the Nigerian economy, she can go home. “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen”. Period.

We still have on the table several questions which have not been answered by Madam’s intemperate outburst. She had provided heat when what Nigerians want is illumination about what happened to the greatest wealth ever created in our history in Nigeria. Incidentally, what we are experiencing now reminds some of us of what happened in the mid-1980s when President Babangida, at the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, NIPSS, said: It is true we have run through one of the greatest financial bonanzas that ever happened to a nation in need; so fast and so recklessly that we may wonder if it ever happened at all. We are now in debt..” (IBB, NIPSS, October 26, 1986).
What IBB called great financial bonanza at the time was a drop in the bucket compared with what the present administration collects and spends in one month. Yet, now, as then, we are in debt. More troubling, we have in the last five years run through, perhaps, the last bonanza this nation will ever experience within the life time of most of our readers.

Okonjo-Iweala, obviously lacking in the decorum expected of a public official, cannot expect people to keep quiet on account of her belligerence. Nigerians want to know what happened to the funds the government received in the last five years. And, we will receive the account – with or without her. So the sooner she starts telling us the truth, the real truth this time, the better for her.
Finally, in August 2012, when Dr Okonjo-Iweala returned as Finance Minister, I had written a column titled WELCOME DR OKONJO-IWEALA; I SALUTE YOUR COURAGE in which the following was written.
To be quite candid, I don’t envy you; whether you are paid in dollars or even your weight in gold. As a practitioner of the dismal science, called economics myself, and being aware of the global situation on unemployment, I really admire your courage which borders on martyrdom. To start with, one remembers the warning by Albert Camus, 1903-1960, the Algerian born existentialist philosopher who wrote that, “it is a mistake almost always punished to return to a place which one once loved and hope to regain the same ardour”. Only time will tell if you made the right decision to return. It is doubtful if it will be as successful as the first time for reasons too numerous to disclose.

Then in December, last year, in an article titled GOODBYE OKONJO-IWEALA, the point was made that the CME had returned for a second term but she will leave with her reputation tarnished – perhaps for ever. Irrespective of whether Jonathan is re-elected or not, Okonjo-Iweala is going; and since an actress (all public figures are actors and actresses) is as good as her last show, she will be remembered more for this tenure than the previous one. With it, she had erased whatever goodwill she garnered under Obasanjo. The ALLEGATION of N30 trillion missing merely adds another page to several others filled with questions about her stewardship since 2012.

The most intriguing of those questions is: why was Nigeria the only major oil producing nation which, not only failed to increase its external reserves while the boom was on, but, actually depleted its external reserves and increased its debt at home and abroad? That is not the sort of query which a professional economist answers by abusing those asking it. If she has no answer(s), she should demonstrate the good manners to say so, and go home. So far, she has given an answer which should be graded F – just as Soludo did the administration’s economic performance.
Perhaps she also needs to be asked: “Whose money is it anyway? And why is she behaving as if it is government’s money we are talking about?”

NEXT: Soludo’s Banking “Con-SOLUDO-tion” Was a Monumental Detroit Swindle