UNENDING ROW OVER $418 MILLION
The court should be allowed to decide
For about a year now, the federal government and the 36 states have been embroiled in a controversy over the propriety or otherwise of the controversial $418 million Paris Club contractors’ fees. It is unfortunate that President Muhammadu Buhari has not deemed it fit to intervene on the side of transparency and accountability despite the fact that two of his key ministers are being called out by the governors.
The controversy started on 11th November 2021 when a letter by the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed notified the 36 governors through the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) of a plan to commence the deduction of $418 million from their monthly statutory allocations. The said amount represents what the minister described as the approved consultancy/service fees which were supposed to have been deducted at source by the federal government during the payment of the various tranches of the London/Paris Club refunds to states beginning from 2016.
That letter sparked an instant push-back from the NGF whose leadership argues that since the states were not parties to any suit on the issue, the states were not liable to any person or entity in any judgement debt being relied upon by the federal government. As a preemptive measure, the NGF approached the court. While the case remains pending at the Court of Appeal in Abuja, the NGF on 1st August 2022 petitioned the federal government through the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha. In the letter signed by its chairman and incumbent Governor of Ekiti State, Kayode Fayemi, the NGF alleged that the finance minister, and the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami were making surreptitious moves to kick-start the payment of the controversial $418 million fees to the contractors.
Aside highlighting the legal cases it has won on the issue, including at the Supreme Court, the NGF is also making serious allegations against Ahmed and Malami, the two ministers at the centre of the controversy. One, according to the NGF, it seems the allegiance of the two federal ministers in the contentious $418 million fees resides with the four contractors rather than the Nigerian people. Two, the ‘uncommon zeal and speed’ with which these two ministers have been pursuing the cause of the four contractors has become suspicious, describing the latest attempt to stampede the Federal Executive Council (FEC) to approve the payment as part of this plot.
While we consider the allegations against the two key federal ministers as weighty, we note that this is not the first time the duo has been accused of showing uncommon zeal in paying the controversial fees and gravitating towards the interest of the contractors. That such allegations are coming from elected governors of the 36 states many of whom also belong to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) make the situation troublesome. It is therefore left to these ministers to prove that the allegations are unfounded by staying action on the payment of the controversial fees until the case is fully dispensed with.
Since this matter is already before competent courts of the land, it must be allowed to run its full course. This implies that the federal government and its agents must not jump the gun on a matter involving public resources. In the meantime, President Buhari cannot continue to keep silent on such a serious matter. At the very minimum, he should impress it on his ministers that they cannot pay out public funds without due process of law. Doing so would imply that they are acting beyond the call of duty and for reasons that cannot be in public interest.
