Posted by By ISMAIL OMIPIDAN, Abuja on
President Umaru Yar'Adua on Tuesday forwarded a fresh list of eight nominees to the Senate for confirmation as ministers.
President Umaru Yar'Adua on Tuesday forwarded a fresh list of eight nominees to the Senate for confirmation as ministers.
The list is coming on the heels of a sudden disappearance of the name of Mrs Diezani Allison-Madueke (Bayelsa) and Chief Charles Ugwu (Imo) from the original list of 34 nominees earlier sent to the Senate.
As at last Thursday when the Senate adjourned to continue the consideration of the nominees, the two names appeared on the order paper, but no reason has been given either by the Senate or the Presidency as basis for the omission.
In the fresh list sent to the Senate, Jerry Agada and Mrs Mercy Andooka were nominated from Benue State. Others are Chief Ropo Adesanya (Ekiti), Hassan Haruna (Jigawa State), Mrs Adenike Gra nge (Lagos), Ibrahim Dasuki (Plateau), Adamu Ahmed (Kaduna) and Saadatu Usman Bagudu (Zamfara). This brings to 40 total number of nominees currently before the Senate for screening and subsequent confirmation.
The two nominees from Zamfara and Plateau are members of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), in apparent fulfilment of Yar'Adua's promise to form a government of national unity.
Kano, Benue, Zamfara, Plateau, Lagos and Gombe all have two nominees each, even as the nominee from Kebbi State, whose name was dropped dramatically when the first list got to the Senate, has been re-nominated. She is among the 15 people waiting to be screened.
In a related development, Yar'Adua has sent a bill to the Senate, seeking amendment of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Act, to increase the number of the NNPC board members from three to six. The bill went through its first reading on Tuesday and it is likely to go through the second reading stage on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the Senate screened three additional nominees on Tuesday. They are Senator Mohammed Sanusi Daggash (Borno), Dr. Shamsudeen Usman (Kano) and Kayode Adetokunbo (Ondo).
Daggash was the first to appear. He was accompanied into the Senate chamber by Senator Mohammed Abba Aji and Honourable Mohammed Wakil, all from Borno State. The Senate had to invoke its order 17 of its Standing Rules to admit the two former members of the National Assembly.
Daggash took a bow, in accordance with the tradition of the Senate and left after reeling out his vision for the country. He had said, among other things, that all hands must be on deck in the present administration's quest to move the country forward.
Adetokunbo, who spent about an hour before leaving the Senate chamber, seized the opportunity of his appearance to clear the air over the controversy surrounding the graft charges against him by the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission, (ICPC). He told the Senate that the ICPC had since withdrawn the charges against him.
The deputy governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and minister-designate from Kano State, Dr. Usman, during his turn, declared that the proceeds the country makes from crude oil had turned out to be a curse than a blessing in the economic management of the country.
According to him, rather than continue to rely on oil money, Nigeria's government should be encouraged to generate revenue from other sources to manage recurrent expenditure, while oil money should be set aside to fund capital expenditure.
Usman who further disclosed that contrary to views held in some quarters, Nigeria's money in the foreign reserve available for sharing and subsequent spending, was only about $8 billion, even as he said that any attempt to share such money would result in inflation.
"I am happy that the question has been asked because there is so much confusion among the people here that we have $43 billion. In fact, as at yesterday (Tuesday), it was $43.6 billion and people think that the same amount of $43 billion is to be spent.
"Now, if you break down this $43 billion, about $31 billion or 71 per cent of this amount belongs to the Central Bank. So, we are like a bureau de change. The money was earned by the federation; they brought the dollar to the Central Bank. We took the dollar and gave them naira and they have spent the money. So, all the three tiers of government have shared this $31 billion and spent it. So, it is like you go to a bureau de change; they give you naira; you go and spend it, then you come back and looking at the dollar that you gave to the man and say there is money there.
"So, $31.3 billion of this money is not available for spending. (The sum of) $2.3 billion out of that also belongs to the Federal Government. The only amount available in the Federation Account for distribution, which is the so-called Excess Crude, is about $9.9 billion and there are some transactions that are in the pipeline of about $1 billion. So, the net amount we are talking about now is $8.8 billion. If there is any amount to be spent, that is the amount to be distributed.
"Now the question is that even if you translate that amount into naira, it comes to about N1.1 trillion. Spending this kind of money at such a short notice within the economy will create a cloud or smoke of inflation. You will not get much value out of that spending and in any case, that has been part of the problem of Nigeria. Since the discovery of oil in this country, we have been suffering from a disease that is called the Dutch Disease.
We have got through period of boom and burst with changes in oil prices and we need to learn to save this money. In some countries, like Norway, for example, they have actually decided approach where they do not even spend any of the oil revenues. It is only the interests accumulated on the reserves that are being spent.
"I was in conference of the governors of Central Bank and the governor of the Central Bank of Iraq got up to say that until they established an oil reserve fund in Iraq which was about two or three years ago, that was the time when oil changed from a curse to a blessing.
For us in Nigeria, oil has been a curse and a blessing and unfortunately, sometimes, in terms of economic management, more of a curse than a blessing. Left to me, ideally, this money should be left purely for capital expenditure. All governments should make effort to generate revenue internally at least for their recurrent expenditure; then we can use this fund to generate economic development."