• Main News
  • About Us
  • Contact
Premium Times Opinion
Sunday, June 26, 2022
  • Home
  • Democracy and Governance
    • Bámidélé Upfront
    • Jibrin Ibrahim
    • Okey Ndibe
  • Economy
    • Ifeanyi Uddin
  • Issues of the Day
    • Adeolu Ademoyo
    • Aribisala on Tuesday
    • Dele Agekameh
    • Pius Adesanmi
  • Politics
    • Ebeneezer Obadare
    • Femi Fani-Kayode
    • Garba Shehu
    • Hannatu Musawa
    • Zainab Suleiman Okino
  • Guest Columns
  • Faith
    • Article of Faith
    • Sunday Ogidigbo
    • Friday Sermon
    • Elevated Sight
  • Home
  • Democracy and Governance
    • Bámidélé Upfront
    • Jibrin Ibrahim
    • Okey Ndibe
  • Economy
    • Ifeanyi Uddin
  • Issues of the Day
    • Adeolu Ademoyo
    • Aribisala on Tuesday
    • Dele Agekameh
    • Pius Adesanmi
  • Politics
    • Ebeneezer Obadare
    • Femi Fani-Kayode
    • Garba Shehu
    • Hannatu Musawa
    • Zainab Suleiman Okino
  • Guest Columns
  • Faith
    • Article of Faith
    • Sunday Ogidigbo
    • Friday Sermon
    • Elevated Sight
No Result
View All Result
Premium Times Opinion
Home Columns

Sale of National Assets: Another Self-destructive Jamboree, By Zainab Suleiman Okino

by Premium Times
January 27, 2021
5 min read
0
Finance Minister, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed

The story of the sales of assets in Nigeria is replete with the elite’s collective theft of the national patrimony and assets stripping. Selling is a one-off thing without the capacity to regenerate wealth and as such not a solution to a country’s financial problem. With these sales, government wants to “cut its nose to spite its face”…


The Nigerian leadership has once again embarked on a national pastime of walking in the dark in ignominy. The minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed, recently announced that the government of the day has concluded arrangement to sell some national assets to fund a one-year budget — that of 2021. You would be right to think that disposing of these collectively owned property could fund the nation for at least 10 years and lift us from poverty to prosperity within this period. No, in their reckoning, the generations to come should not have the privilege of inheritance from their forbears, because once upon a time, a recession came and the government had no answer but to resort to selling off what belonged to all, just for a year’s budget.

As illogical as disposing off your property because you are broke is, a whole bunch of government officials could not think outside the box in a time of crisis, except to take an easy route that would further pauperise the nation.

In truth, no one expected the 2021 budget would be an easy ride; definitely not with the COVID-19 pandemic and attendant havoc-like recession and economic downturn, but for an economy already battered by bad government policies, mismanagement of resources and corruption, it is not a surprise that it would be a struggle to implement the 2021 budget. Thus, typical of our government’s inability to fund its profligacy embedded in the budget, it wants to do the unthinkable. Our budgets have always suffered from trust deficit because every year, budgets are never executed, except for the payment of personnel and emoluments, even as it is always over-inflated through padding or the extraneous items smuggled in.

In addition to selling national assets, the Federal Government has also toyed with the idea of borrowing to fund this same budget. I’m not an economist, but I think it is wrong to borrow and spend monies you don’t have, especially with the consumerism and unproductiveness of our populace. According to the minister, the N5.6 trillion gap in the N13.58 trillion budget will be borrowed from the World Bank, the Islamic Development Bank and countries like Brazil, which is a developing country like Nigeria. Yet, Nigerians are still kicking over incessant borrowings without the concomitant development of key infrastructure to at least justify the debt overhang being bequeathed to generations unborn.

Meanwhile, the same 2021 is said to be N505 billion higher than that of 2020. Again, from a lay person’s point of view, it does not make sense to increase a budget in a pandemic and recession year, only for that same country to want to borrow or sell national assets to finance it. Isn’t it safer to work within your limited finance than project high and plunge the nation into more debt traps?

Besides, up till this moment, no one can tell how the proceeds of such sales were ever utilised to help the economy. Nigeria still has housing deficit issues and virtually none of the public sector properties sold did better after their acquisition. Instead, the assets were stripped and the companies rendered comatose, such that today they are shadows of their past.


In a document from the minister, government will sell the integrated power plants in Geregu, Omotosho and Calabar at N434 billion, concession the National Arts Theatre, Tafawa Balewa Square and all the river basins authorities at N836 billion. Also the National Stadium in Lagos, Moshood Abiola Statium, Abuja and two others are to be concessioned for N100 million and all the sales would be through the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), an organ of government that has an unenviable past in this regard, and somehow operates clandestinely, according to the Senate.

Unfortunately, the country has been through this kind of mess before; the only difference is that no lesson was learnt from that time.

Between 2003 and 2007, the Olusegun Obasanjo government, with the current governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai at the helms, hurriedly auctioned off some national assets running into billions of naira. Although it is true that those government properties were run down, affording the authorities the alibi to sell them, a serious government would have fixed the associated problems of corruption, mismanagement and the absence of a maintenance culture, than further reducing the assets to liabilities, and diminishing their worth towards onward sale to friends and cronies.

Besides, up till this moment, no one can tell how the proceeds of such sales were ever utilised to help the economy. Nigeria still has housing deficit issues and virtually none of the public sector properties sold did better after their acquisition. Instead, the assets were stripped and the companies rendered comatose, such that today they are shadows of their past. A bad example of how not to sell government property was the disposal of NICON Insurance to a business man, Jimoh Ibrahim. Today, the company is worse off, with its bad shape reflected in the physical dilapidation of the company’s gigantic head office in Abuja. The sale of Daily Times newspaper, which in its hey days had property strewn all over the country, has remained a subject of litigation almost 20 years after, even as its assets have been stripped too. Not to talk of the sale of the Legislative Quarters in Abuja – an action that caused so much uproar but which the subsequent government of Umaru Yar’adua did not have the courage to upturn.

The minister also said the assets earmarked for sale are moribund and their liquidation would boost the nation’s economy without explaining how… even as she had earlier said that the “intention is not just funding the budget, it is to reactivate these assets and hand them over or have them bring contributions to the growth in the economy”.


There is also the nagging issue of borrowing from unclaimed dividends and dormant bank deposits, as if the owners of these accounts, even if dead, do not have relations or traceable addresses. All that is required is for Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) to do due diligence and contact the families of the depositors. It is not free money lying waste, as the government would have us believe. Instead of utilising it for unproductive ventures, the money could be invested in social services that can bring succour to the needy. Government does not have a good reputation in this respect.

The minister also said the assets earmarked for sale are moribund and their liquidation would boost the nation’s economy without explaining how. “There are some government assets that are dead, that can be sold to the private sector to be reactivated and put to use for the benefit of Nigerians. We are looking at different categories of government assets that government has not been able to manage, and in some cases even completely run down, to cede them off to the private sector”, even as she had earlier said that the “intention is not just funding the budget, it is to reactivate these assets and hand them over or have them bring contributions to the growth in the economy”.

The story of the sales of assets in Nigeria is replete with the elite’s collective theft of the national patrimony and assets stripping. Selling is a one-off thing without the capacity to regenerate wealth and as such not a solution to a country’s financial problem. With these sales, government wants to “cut its nose to spite its face”, in “a needlessly self-destructive over-reaction to a problem”. So, what will happen to the budgets of the coming years, when there will be no property to sell? Such is the reality check government should subject the 2021 budget to, instead of going on a borrowing binge and disposing of what belongs to all to a few acolytes.

zainanokino@gmail.com

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Print
  • More
  • Pocket
  • Share on Tumblr

Related

Previous Post

Sunday Igboho and the Yoruba Nation, By Reuben Abati

Next Post

Taming the Unbridled Four Horsemen: Ebora of Owu and the African Renaissance, By Toyin Falola

Related Posts

Trust and Confidence Building As Conditions of Good Governance, By Uddin Ifeanyi
Columns

The Policy Implications of 2021’s Low Growth Projections, By Uddin Ifeanyi

February 1, 2021
Akinwunmi Adesina: Africa’s Spotless Son, By Wole Olaoye
Columns

Iron Woman of Berlin, By Wole Olaoye

January 31, 2021
Rethinking Heroism and the Nigerian Civil Service, By Festus Adedayo
Columns

Aliko Dangote’s Costly Mess of the Libido, By Festus Adedayo

January 31, 2021
Why Lai Mohammed Must Be Fired Immediately, By Femi Aribisala
Article of Faith

Is God Invisible?, By Femi Aribisala

January 31, 2021
Religion As Africa’s Trojan Horse, By Osmund Agbo
Columns

South-East Governors: Preparing For a Post-oil and Restructured Nigeria, By Osmund Agbo

January 30, 2021
People Deserve The Coach They Hire, By Owei Lakemfa
Columns

Again, Entombed Humans Triumph Over Death, By Owei Lakemfa

January 30, 2021
Next Post
COVID-19: the Global System and the African Economy, By Toyin Falola

Taming the Unbridled Four Horsemen: Ebora of Owu and the African Renaissance, By Toyin Falola

Asaba Massacre: Still Seeking Remedy and Closure 52 Years After, By Cheta Nwanze

Nigeria: Breaking the Hold of State Capture, By Cheta Nwanze

Editorial

  • EDITORIAL: The Urgency of Tackling Nigeria’s Second Wave of COVID-19

    EDITORIAL: The Urgency of Tackling Nigeria’s Second Wave of COVID-19

  • EDITORIAL: Unearthing the Cogent Lessons In the NESG-CBN Economic Policy Imbroglio

    EDITORIAL: Unearthing the Cogent Lessons In the NESG-CBN Economic Policy Imbroglio

  • EDITORIAL: COVID-19: Calling On Nigeria’s Billionaires and Religious Leaders To Step Up

    EDITORIAL: COVID-19: Calling On Nigeria’s Billionaires and Religious Leaders To Step Up

  • EDITORIAL: Bichi Must Go; Buhari Must Halt Slide Into Despotism

    EDITORIAL: Bichi Must Go; Buhari Must Halt Slide Into Despotism

  • EDITORIAL: The Flaws In Governor Emefiele’s Five-Year Plan For Central Bank of Nigeria

    EDITORIAL: The Flaws In Governor Emefiele’s Five-Year Plan For Central Bank of Nigeria

Subscribe to our Opinion articles via email

Enter your email address to get notifications of new opinion articles as they are published.

Join 526,540 other subscribers

Most Popular

  • More Fiction than Reality: Anambra’s Purported ‘Golden’ Finances and Grand Legacy of the Obi Era, By Fidelis Nwangwu
    More Fiction than Reality: Anambra’s Purported ‘Golden’ Finances and Grand Legacy of the Obi Era, By Fidelis Nwangwu
  • The Bad Consequences and Dangers of Adultery and Fornication (Zina) In Islam, By Murtadha Gusau
    The Bad Consequences and Dangers of Adultery and Fornication (Zina) In Islam, By Murtadha Gusau
  • The Qualities of a Good Leader In Islam, By Murtadha Gusau
    The Qualities of a Good Leader In Islam, By Murtadha Gusau
  • Islam and the Conditions For Marrying More Than One Wife, By Murtadha Gusau
    Islam and the Conditions For Marrying More Than One Wife, By Murtadha Gusau
  • You Will Be Held Responsible On What Happened To Your Children!, By Murtadha Gusau
    You Will Be Held Responsible On What Happened To Your Children!, By Murtadha Gusau
  • World Teachers Day and The Position of Teachers In Islam, By Murtadha Gusau
    World Teachers Day and The Position of Teachers In Islam, By Murtadha Gusau
  • Showing Gratitude To Allah For His Bounties, Blessings and Favours, By Murtadha Gusau
    Showing Gratitude To Allah For His Bounties, Blessings and Favours, By Murtadha Gusau

Like us on Facebook

Like us on Facebook

Podcasts

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

  • Main News
  • About Us
  • Contact

© 2022 JNews - Premium WordPress news & magazine theme by Jegtheme.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Democracy and Governance
    • Bámidélé Upfront
    • Jibrin Ibrahim
    • Okey Ndibe
  • Economy
    • Ifeanyi Uddin
  • Issues of the Day
    • Adeolu Ademoyo
    • Aribisala on Tuesday
    • Dele Agekameh
    • Pius Adesanmi
  • Politics
    • Ebeneezer Obadare
    • Femi Fani-Kayode
    • Garba Shehu
    • Hannatu Musawa
    • Zainab Suleiman Okino
  • Guest Columns
  • Faith
    • Article of Faith
    • Sunday Ogidigbo
    • Friday Sermon
    • Elevated Sight

© 2022 JNews - Premium WordPress news & magazine theme by Jegtheme.

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy.