The Federal Government of Nigeria is to spend about $25 billion (N8.83 trillion) in the 2019 fiscal year. Of this amount, $5.4 billion is budgeted to service its debt. This is just about what Trump needs to fund his “vanity” wall. In addition, roughly $5 billion is for capital expenditure and maybe about $2 billion to finance the war against the Boko Haram terrorist group.
What relief will less than $20 billion deliver to about 180 million people? That’s 3 cents per day for every citizen (or $11 a year).
The 36 sub-regional governments (i.e. the states) will also be spending. But their combined budget is not more than the federal government. Their spending may add about 2 cents to citizens per day. Not enough? It’s better than nothing for a country seeking to turn around its fortunes from a poverty-stricken economy to a prosperous one.
Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest businessman, is capable of funding this budget more than four times. Nigerian has more than this! It can spend more than this!
However, corruption remains the country’s biggest problem. Corruption has moved (and is still moving) public resources to private tills, and consequently the conversion of public goods into private goods (with most of it based abroad).
For instance, the head of one of Nigeria’s anti-graft agencies, recently claimed N1.3 trillion was stolen in four years by 32 entities. Also, he added that one-third of this money – using World Bank rates and cost – could have been comfortably used to construct well over 500 kilometres of roads, build about 200 schools, educate about 4,000 children from primary to tertiary levels at N25 million per child.
As noted by Michael Peel, a British journalist, “Nigeria’s two main client states, the US and Britain, have profited vastly from the systematic plunder of the country’s assets by dictators, governors, and businessmen. A venal western financial system centered in London is allegedly linked to corrupt money which has spread like an oil slick right the way through the international financial system.” More on this in Chapter Six of Peel’s book titled, ‘A Swamp Full of Dollars: Pipelines and Paramilitaries at Nigeria’s Oil Frontier’.
Let’s assume the stealing continues unabated. Should we sit here until we die? Certainly not! There will always be a way out. I’ll make a couple of proposals.
First, mobilise private finance for development by financing Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Martin Chrisney, director of the International Development Assistance Services Institute at KPMG, shed some light on this in a Center for Global Development podcast.
Second, form Aid to BUILD (Better Utilization of Investments Leading to Development) Act. This is a win-win recently passed initiative by the US Congress. Through the recently created US International Development Finance Corporation (USIDFC), the Act promises to fight poverty in the developing world through businesses, by “crowding-in” the vitally needed private sector investment in low and lower-middle-income countries.
Provide means, more loans, grants, and other guarantees for projects that will make a difference for people living in extreme poverty.
Zuhumnan Dapel
Dapel is a past fellow of the Scottish Institute of Research and Economics
