•We should know how N30trn Ways and Means was spent

We commend the decision by the senate to probe the controversial N30tn Ways and Means loans granted by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari. Far from being an attempt to open wounds as some are won’t to tag the exercise, it seems, in the circumstances in which the country has found itself, utterly unthinkable that those charged with the public duty of calling such behaviours into account, will pass off the egregious violations of the era without doing violence to their own integrity as an institution. Nigerians would readily recall the many controversies that trailed the issue of the reckless loans to the immediate past administration. The high point of that sordid era was President Muhammadu Buhari’s January 2023 letter to the National Assembly requesting that the N22.7trn Ways and Means loan be converted to a 40-year bond with a moratorium of three years. Whereas the House of Representatives acceded to the request, the 9th Senate would be thrown into a chaotic session after some lawmakers opposed to the request demanded the details of the expenditures. Amidst strident objections by some members who had insisted that the approval would run foul of the law, the then senate president Ahmad Lawan had rammed the request through.

With last Tuesday resolution by the senate to proceed with a probe, the wheels would appear to have turned full circle. But then, the development is itself a logical sequel to the recommendation of its Joint Committee on Banking, Insurance and Other Financial Institutions, Finance, National Planning, Agriculture and Appropriation on State of the Economy, on the matter. The body had held interactive sessions with the Federal Government’s economic management team on the issue, following which it recommended that a probe had become necessary. Here is the broad stroke of the committee’s observation as captured in its report: “One of the main drivers of inflation in Nigeria today is the volume of money in circulation. As at December 2023, the country recorded an unprecedented money supply of N78.74tn, and a 51 per cent year-on-year increase when compared to money supply as at December 2022. One of the driving forces of this significant increase in money supply was the N30tn Ways and Means or the direct financing extended by the CBN to the Federal Government which has only weakened the balance sheet of the central bank. In addition to the inflationary pressures, the country is also battling with acute shortages of food items.”

Now, the Godswill Akpabio-led senate wants the entire affair probed: ‘A thorough probe must be carried out on the N22.7tn Ways and Means approved in May 2023 by the 9th Senate which later increased to N30trn, with the passage of the N7.2trn accrued interest forwarded to the senate for passage last December…The details of the spending, he insisted ‘must be submitted for required scrutiny and possible remedies…’

With due respect to the former Senate President under whose watch those controversial activities took place, and who in the course of the deliberations last week, would urge his colleagues to consign the development to the past to enable the body focus on the present, we do believe that this senate, unlike the one in which he held sway, is very much in order. His call, if we may put it bluntly, seems to us as utterly irresponsible.

To start with, the country would not have been in this mess had the 9th senate done the due diligence of requesting for the detailed breakdown of how the N30 trillion went. As if that was not bad enough, the same senate would take to the ‘sleep mode’ and so failed to sound the alarm even when the signs were there all along that the apex bank had not only violated the relevant provisions of the CBN Act 2007, but had in moments of an assumed national exigency, conveniently overstepped its traditional boundaries of monetary policy management.

It may be that Nigerians have grown weary of probes that in the end up as mere charades. What is undeniable is that the latest one is not just at sync with the demands of public accounting, it is a public duty imposed on the senate. In any case, it is in accord with the citizens’ right to know. This is even more so now that the proverbial chicken has come home to roost; with the mind-boggling revelations of outlawry and subversion of the foremost national institution by its irresponsible leadership. The probe seems to us the surest path to a definitive closure of that sordid chapter.

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