Politics

NIGERIA: Just how ‘sensible’ is it to share $300m looted fund to the poor?

Published

6 years ago

July 1, 2018

What to do with $300 million repatriated by the Swiss government from the stock stolen and stashed away in Switzerland by former military dictator, late General Sani Abacha, is threatening to drive a wedge between the Muhammadu Buhari-led administration and members of the civil society in Nigeria.

The government, over the weekend, said that the money, stolen by Abacha in the 1990s, will be given to around 300,000 households, with each getting around $14 a month, beginning next month.

Given this projection, the payments – to be made to residents in 19 of Nigeria’s 36 states – would most probably last for about six years.

However, government plans have met with some resistance from sections of the civil society. The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) on Sunday said that it was unimpressed with the Buhari-led administration’s plans to redistribute the recovered loot to some poor families, alleging that it didn’t make much of economic sense.

SERAP said, “The authorities have a legal obligation under the UN Convention against Corruption to which Nigeria is a state party to make sure that the returned Abacha loot is properly and efficiently used, both from the viewpoint of using asset recovery as a tool of ensuring justice to victims of corruption and breaking the cycle of grand corruption. But the plan to share the loot among households is mere tokenism and would neither have significant impact on poverty alleviation nor satisfy the twin objectives of justice and development.”

“The government should source funds elsewhere to continue its NAASP. The authorities should do the right thing with the returned loot and show Nigerians that they can properly and efficiently invest the funds in projects that would provide tangible benefits to the victims of corruption who are the socially and economically vulnerable sectors of the population.

“The authorities can use the loot to fund universal healthcare programme and a tuition assistance programme that would provide post-secondary/university education scholarships to young Nigerians from poor families and who would otherwise lack the resources to carry out their studies,” SERAP added.

The group also queried the efficacy and credibility of the entire plan, wondering the justification of leaving out some states from the exercise.

“In any case, distributing the returned loot to households in 19 states because the remaining 17 state governments have not yet put in place the appropriate platform through which to implement the NAASP is both unfair and discriminatory.

“The planned distribution is also vulnerable to abuse and corruption by state governors, who may push for the funds to be given to their supporters and thus used for parochial and political purposes. The proper and efficient spending of recovered funds is key for development and can support efforts to combat grand corruption, “ SERAP said.

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Politics

Ethiopia, Somalia agree to resolve Somaliland port conflict

Published

13 hours ago

December 12, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

Ethiopia and Somalia agreed to cooperate in settling a disagreement over Addis Ababa’s proposal to construct a port in Somaliland. This breakaway area had attracted regional powers, posing a further threat to the stability of the Horn of Africa.

Following discussions facilitated by Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday, the leaders of the two nations said that they had reached an agreement to create business agreements that would provide landlocked Ethiopia “reliable, secure and sustainable access to and from the sea.”

The meeting was their first since Ethiopia announced in January that it would recognise the independence of Somaliland, a breakaway entity in northern Somalia, in exchange for leasing a port there.

The agreement was rejected by Mogadishu, which also threatened to drive out Ethiopian forces fighting Islamist terrorists in Somalia.

Somaliland, which has governed itself and had relative peace and stability since announcing its independence in 1991, is opposed by Somalia to international recognition.

Ethiopia and Somalia announced in a joint statement issued late Wednesday that they had agreed to begin technical talks by the end of February of next year and to wrap them up in four months.

“This joint declaration focuses on the future, not the past,” Erdogan said at a press conference in Ankara afterwards.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed praised Turkish attempts to settle the conflict, while Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud declared he was prepared to cooperate with Ethiopia.

The dispute has brought Somalia closer to Eritrea, another of Ethiopia’s longstanding enemies, and Egypt, which has been at odds with Ethiopia for years over Addis Ababa’s development of a massive hydro project on the Nile River.

Ethiopia and Somalia are close partners of Turkey, which provides development aid and security force training to Somalia in exchange for a foothold on a vital international shipping route.

Politics

Officials report fight between Somalia’s Jubbaland region, central govt

Published

2 days ago

December 11, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

After Jubbaland staged an election against the advice of the Mogadishu administration, officials claimed on Wednesday that fighting had broken out between the federal government and the semi-autonomous Jubbaland region of Somalia.

“This morning, federal forces from Mogadishu in Ras Kamboni, using drones, attacked Jubbaland forces,” Adan Ahmed Haji, assistant security minister of Jubbaland, told a press conference in Jubbaland’s capital Kismayu.

Response requests were not immediately answered by Interior Minister Yusuf Ali or Information Minister Daud Aweis of the national administration.

Jubbaland, one of Somalia’s five semi-autonomous republics that borders Ethiopia and Kenya, elected regional president Ahmed Mohamed Islam Madobe to a third term in late November.

Jubbaland has the potential to be one of Somalia’s richest districts due to its location and natural resources, but for more than 20 years, violence has kept it permanently unsettled.

There are no explicit guidelines in the Somali constitution regarding the establishment of recently formed federal entities or their interactions with the national government.