I am no kill-joy. Therefore, I will start out by congratulating Shehu Shagari, a former president of Nigeria, on attaining the age of 90. Shagari was Nigeria’s president during the infamous and disastrous Second Republic (1979-1983). Understandably, such is his visibility in public life that his birthday has been greeted with various shades of encomiums. The well-wishers have described him in grand, if fictitious, terms as statesman, nation-builder, architect of Nigerian development, blah, blah, blah.
Needless to say, a lot of what has been said about Shagari on his birthday does violence to truth and reality. But, probably unknown to many of us, a number of scholars took time to study and analyze Nigeria’s Second Republic under Shehu Shagari’s presidency. These scholars, in different books, came forth with counter-narratives on Shehu Shagari. On this note, I will like to refer the reader to books like Prebendalism and Nigeria’s Second Republic (Richard Joseph); Nigeria’s Second Republic (Falola and Ihonvbere), and Nigeria’s Second Republic: Presidentialism, Politics and Administration in a Developing State (Ayeni and Soremekun). There are also works like Just Before Dawn and Nigeria: The Stolen Billions, written, respectively, by Kole Omotoso and Arthur Agwuncha Nwankwo. For good measure, we will now turn to the last of these books in order to reveal the mind-boggling waste, fraud and irresponsibility as well as mal-governance which characterized Nigeria under President Shehu Shagari’s supposed watch.
The Second Republic kicked off on an optimistic note in late 1979. Despite the pillage of yester-years, Shagari inherited an external reserve of N2.3 billion. In the next four years of his rule, Nigeria would earn a total of N40.5 billion in foreign exchange. One major style of his government was the weekly meeting of the party caucus at the State House on Ribadu Road. These meetings were attended by the president and other fat-cats of the then ruling (ruining) party, the National Party of Nigeria (NPN). As revealed separately by Nwankwo and Omotoso in their respective books, this assemblage of powerful men of the Second Republic administration met every week, ostensibly to critically analyze the state of the nation. In reality, however, the meetings were more concerned with the issues of illegal oil deals and kickbacks from capital projects. These men of power effectively plotted what turned out to be the systematic looting of Nigeria. According to records, they had a willing institutional ally in the defunct Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI). By the 1990s, when BBCI was in its death throes, it became synonymous with the looting of Nigeria in the period under Shagari’s presidency.
In view of the excessive margins built into contracts, BCCI easily acquiesced in over-invoicing and in the process made a killing in Nigeria. Bank officials, top party functionaries and senior government officials aided and abetted over-invoicing scams running into billions of naira. In the process, public functionaries during the Second Republic used BCCI facilities to salt away billions of naira into private accounts in Europe and North America. The International Financial Statistics, the official organ of the International Monetary Fund, bore eloquent testimony to this ugly dimension of life in Nigeria. The journal contended that exporters of goods and services were paid N30.122 billion for their exports, but Nigeria sent out N37.289 billion as payments. This means an excess of N7.167 billion was unaccounted for.
As further revealed by Nwankwo, the NPN fraud machine also incorporated a company, Ariya Limited. This outfit won many contracts, which were never executed. The case of the Bi-water Scandal demonstrated the international dimension of some of the fraudulent activities during this period 1979-1983. According to the report of the Awoniyi Judicial Commission of Inquiry, out of the N100 million external loan for the Bi-water project, less than 25 percent was utilized, with the rest unaccounted for.
As the ruling party intensified its looting agenda, every aspect of government became a target. Internal debts owed to contractors were inflated, and the differences were gobbled up by the predators. The Solano committee which investigated Nigeria’s debt during this period stated that out of N7.186 billion said to be owed to contractors by the Federal Government, only N300 million was deemed to be authentic!
Nigeria, once a food exporter, became a net importer. Perhaps the only exception to this sordid story was Balarabe Musa, the People’s Redemption Party (PRP) governor of Kano State. He stopped a water project on the grounds that it would only benefit the elite and not the masses. For his pains, the NPN-dominated state assembly impeached him.
Indeed, Arthur Nwankwo has rightly argued that by 1983, Shagari’s party could only measure its success by the poverty, despair and hunger in the land. His scorecard was a parchment of corruption and iniquities – a shocking and sad commentary on how unpatriotic leaders would sink the nation into an irredeemable abyss of perdition. In sum, between 1979 and 1983, Nigeria earned about N40.5 billion and squandered it. The external reserve of N2.3 billion that the country inherited in 1979 was wiped out and replaced with a staggering external debt of N10.21 billion.
In view of the foregoing, all those fulsome praises for Shagari at 90 are devoid of reality. Thus, if I may be allowed to reiterate, I wish Shagari the very best in his twilight years. But then, when the occasion called for patriotism and responsible governance, President Shehu Shagari and his band of conscienceless free-loaders were conspicuously missing.
Postscript: Unfortunately, Shagari’s successors have turned out to be worse. But, dear reader, when the occasion calls for it, we will do a review of them as we have done in this particular instance. For now, please note that all of them possess national honours. Talk of honour in a land reeking with ignominy!
Kayode Soremekun
