IS NIGERIA GUILTY OF EXISTENCE: SENSELESS WISDOM OF NIGERIA'S SOVEREIGN WEALTH FUND
IS NIGERIA GUILTY OF EXISTENCE: SENSELESS WISDOM OF NIGERIA'S SOVEREIGN WEALTH FUND
It’s hard to miss what you never had, but not to have had something doesn’t mean not to aspire nor deserve it. Having always had circumstances unhinged doesn’t warrant a surrender to the choke-hold of “it has always been this way”. Fighting the Tyranny of "How it has always been" requires discarding the psyche of "it has always been like this" and wear a new psyche, possibly askance. Nigeria has never had a transparent/accountable government of the people. Members of Nigeria’s Leadership Class and those who have served in Cabinet/ministerial positions often hold the nation in contempt and abuse it with proliferate and extravagant impunity, as though Nigeria is guilty of existence. Members of the Nigeria’s economic planning, policy, development and investment teams since independence often prescribed economic and investment psychotropics fore the nation: And it has kept the nation on a perpetual needy trajectory, as though the known and anticipated highs, the hallucinations are the needed cure for the nations socio-economic under-performance.
Reflecting on the possible ravages of COVID-19 and Post COVID-19 on energy/oil market, former Nigerian Finance Minister, and Minister of Trade and Industry during Saint (President) Goodluck Jonathan’s Administration, Mr. Olusegun Aganga, aka Father of Nigeria’s Sovereign Wealth Fund, said on May-17-2020: “The glut is going to hit Nigeria harder because we do not have any refining capacity or solid long-term oil contracts as the Saudis have with China and we are almost entirely dependent on oil revenues to support our budget and reserves.”
Remember, Mr. Olusegun Aganga, as Minister of Trade/Investment drummed up the proposition, prescribed the investment psychotropic named Nigeria’s Sovereign Wealth Fund. And in Connivance with Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (then Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of Economy) sold the prescription to the Nigerian public, Board of Governors and the Presidency. Saint Goodluck Jonathan, later signed it into Law, establishing NSIA -Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority. This Law authorized Mr. Olusegun Aganga to yank $1Billion from the NSIA account and deposit it with JP Morgan Chase Bank in New York, to manage as Sovereign Investment. That Investment hasn’t generated any significant profit for Nigeria since 2012. Today in 2020, Mr. Aganga applauds the highs and hallucination of his prescriptions to the Nigeria by telling the nation, we regrettably don’t have infrastructure such as refineries.
When the proposition was sold, signed into law by Goodluck Jonathan, and the $1Billion safely deposited into Chase Bank, Madame Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala crooned on a Tuesday: “The battle was long but I think the country stands to gain and I think it was worth it,” Just wondering what she thinks today. How dare they conduct the business of the people in such an incautious manner?
However, all the evils against Nigeria and by Nigeria against the citizenry since independence hasn’t so much been an exclusive product of perversity of the Leadership class, as it’s the symptom of infinite tolerance of evil, incompetence, thievery, mismanagement, and abdication of civic responsibilities by the people of the land. If and when every Nigerian shows what he feels, what she thinks and demonstrate the same through civic exercise. And in so doing accept any burden, embrace any danger, confront fear and inertia devoid of any interest other than public advantage, liberty and welfare it will bestow on the citizenry present and future, we as a people will be free and saved. Hope is coming to Nigeria.
Obi Orakwue is a Research Scientist, Author (Writer/Ghostwriter), Business Consultant, Statecraft Specialist, Geopolitical Strategist: Reach him: [email protected]