Soludo replies Jonathan, says money stolen from economy far exceeds annual federal budget

Charles Soludo, a former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), on Tuesday renewed his attacks on the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan.

Soludo, who has been accusing the government of handling the economy poorly, earlier vowed to suspend his comments about the country till the general election is over.

But breaking his vow in a lengthy piece released on Tuesday, Soludo said that waiting till end of the election would amount to him being misrepresented.

In an interview with Thisday last week, Jonathan had dismissed the allegation of Soludo that N30 trillion was missing from the federation’s account.

But the former governor of the apex bank maintained his ground.

“I had earlier stated that I would not make further comments on the issues until probably after the elections but since Mr. President has decided to join the fray, I am constrained to make a further brief clarification,” he said.

“ThisDay quoted Mr. President as saying that ‘Soludo said that under Ngozi’s watch they stole N30 trillion’ but that since the sum of the federal budget over the last four years was less than N30 trillion, such an amount could not have been ‘stolen’.

“I believe that the pressures of office and the hectic electioneering campaigns have not allowed him time to read my articles or that his staff have not explained the contents to him hence he totally missed the point in his comments.

“It is evident that the monies I referred to are ‘off-budget’. These are monies that did not make it to the budget. I find it funny that the government deliberately avoided the issues raised above but instead has sought to divert attention by focusing on the ‘federal budget’.

“Let me state for the record that I believe that the amount of resources that are either stolen from the economy or out-rightly mismanaged by government far exceeds the federal budget per annum. Ours is about a N100 trillion economy, and I will be shocked if the government pretends that it does not know that currently about 10% of the GDP falls into a ‘black hole’ on annual basis.”

He criticised the idea of government basing its success on the assessment of foreign organisations like CNN and World Bank, saying that not all projections of those organisations are accurate.

“What I found particularly disconcerting as a Nigerian from the comments I read is the fixation to validation from the World Bank,” he said.

“According to Mr. President, ‘We asked the minister how her colleagues at the World Bank saw the accusation’. I shook my head in disbelief.

“It is instructive that no one asked what Nigerians thought or ‘how Nigerians saw it’ but rather what was important to government was the impression of the World Bank. If this is the mindset of our leaders, then ordinary citizens have real cause to worry.

“Well, I have read several editorial comments of Nigerian media and they do not agree with the ‘impression’ of the World Bank official. I read a similar comment by a high government official stating that World Bank officials and CNN had told them that government was doing well and therefore who else could question them.

“But neither the World Bank nor CNN conducts comprehensive independent surveys on the economy – they comment based on the data they are given – and their subjective opinions cannot substitute for hard facts.

“The World Bank is not a statistical agency. I can provide a long list of countries that World Bank reports praised as ‘star performers’ and they slumped into deep crisis almost immediately after.

“Check out the World Bank and IMF reports on the US and other countries’ economies shortly before the unprecedented global financial and economic crisis in 50 years (the Great Recession of 2008/09). Actually for many countries once they start getting such ‘praises’, then perceptive officials begin to worry.

“Nigeria is probably the only country where its government officials quote the World Bank while ignoring data from its own statistical agency!”