An International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law, a nongovernmental organization has said there is nothing to show by the federal government, 36 states, the FCT and the 774 local government areas for the sum of $724 billion or N140.8 trillion they budgeted in the past 16 years.
The group also alleged that sum of $302 billion or N66.7 trillion has been budgeted and siphoned by Nigerian politicians since 2003 in a statement signed by Emeka Umeagbalasi, its Chairman, Board of Trustees.
The group, in a statement released to journalists on Wednesday, April 4, 2018, in reaction to the release of looters list by the ruling All Progressives Congress and the Peoples Democratic Party, said out of the whopping sum of $302 billion or N66.7 trillion budgeted since 2003; less than 30 percent or $90.6 billion (N19trillion) was budgeted for capital expenditures or for provision of good governance and public good for the entire population of Nigeria.
According to the group, recurrent expenditures (running costs of government and remunerations of 608,926 public servants of the federal government) consumed the balance of $211.4 billion (N47 trillion) or over 70 percent of the entire budgets.
“The appropriation Act engineered lootings of the treasury are glaringly perpetrated and perpetuated through inflated or over-bloated running costs or overheads and multiplicity of allowances.
“A clear case in point was the self-allocation of jumbo allowances of N13 million and N12 million per month as legislative running costs whereas the top public office holders amended Act of 2008 clearly fixed such at relatively over N1 million per month.”
The group said the national leadership of the organized labor has been part of the conspiracy, always pretending to be advocating for the welfare of all Nigerians; whereas evidence shows the contrary.
The group called on all Nigerians to refuse to be distracted by brickbat of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, in their list of looters, referring to them as the country’s two umbrellas of corruption.
It said: “Public governance is too important to be turned into an arena of diversion, distraction, and deceit. As the country had been held by jugulars by its political criminals operating through the umbrellas of APC and PDP, these political criminals must be upturned and held by jugulars by Nigerians too.
“The two umbrellas of corruption holding sway at the federal level in the form of “federal ruling and federal opposition parties” as well as States or sub-national entities where they hold sway; must explain to Nigerians the whereabouts of whopping sum of $302billion or N66.7trillion budgeted and spent by the Federal Government of Nigeria since 2003.
“They must also tell Nigerians why the country is still acutely lagging behind its peers and juniors of the 60s and the 70s especially the likes of South Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Taiwan, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Brunei, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Iran, Brazil, Argentina, Philippines; not to talk of China and India,” the group said.
