A Country Pledged out by Corrupt Leadership.

By Bolaji O. Akinyemi.

We are daily encouraged by many Nation Builders to be positive in our confessions in the face of our confrontations!

Agreed! But what is the need for positivity when the political class has pledged otherwise!

Sincere efforts to sail this tide must be focused not just on the journey but first on the captain and his crew, then the ship!

Kudos to the Apostolic Round Table! Many more educating and informing conferences for citizens on the state of the nation must come on steam and must lead to public action advocacy to rescue Nigeria!

Nothing positive can be achieved until the ruling class is prevailed upon from eating our seeds with its potentials of harvests without planting them!

This is what informs the Apostolic Round Table’s 2024 Conference tagged: “Stewards of Nations”. With a continental focus, where a paper; The Seed Concept: Stewarding Monetary System For Wealth Creation will be presented to Nigerians for discussion and consequent action!

Why this step? Most nations are contented with motivating citizens’ productivity and patriotism vis a vis the lines of the national Anthem. National, But not Nigeria! With lines capable of inspiring the most depressed of hearts through our national anthem but for a leadership that is short of being an example of its aims and objectives, the pledge, a duplication of the intents of our anthem was composed and handed down to the people!

…”to serve our father’s land with love and strength and faith…
….to serve with all our might, one nation bound in freedom. Peace and unity.”

Contrast that with the lines of the pledge;

The compatriots called to arise are making their commitments daily!

“I pledge to Nigeria my country, to be faithful, loyal and honest”, deserving response to the call; “to serve our father’s land with love and strength and faith”, but we are often led in the service by persons whose fathers’ land, our nation, is not!

The anthem called us to serve Nigeria with all our might for one nation bound in freedom. Peace and unity. This is our vow in the pledge; ” serve Nigeria with all my strength to defend her unity and uphold her honour and glory,
So help me God!

It seems like our faith is fake and our God or gods live(s) in our mouths without any roots in our hearts making it easy for us to pay lip service to matters of collective interest in pushing for selfish greed and personal aggradisment!

While our children are daily pledging their future and we parents, our today, Our political class has actually pledged out the country, its resources and people through deliberate mismanagement of our common wealth!

How do we explain the loan facilitated by Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited and the repayment pledge made on our behalf! Arranged by Afrexim Bank. In a news reported by TheCable!

“Nigeria will pay an interest of 11.85 percent per annum on the $3.3 billion “pre-export finance facility” (PxF) facilitated by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Ltd and arranged by Afrexim Bank”!

…”Until now, the fine details of the transaction, which has a five-year tenor, had been withheld by all parties involved!

A similar cocoa-backed $800 million facility arranged for Ghana by its Cocoa Marketing Board attracts an interest of 8 percent per annum!
Bilateral lenders, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), would typically charge 1-3 percent with a longer tenor!

In the details seen by TheCable, Nigeria pledged a total of 164.25 million barrels of crude oil — at 90,000 barrels per day — starting from 2024 to repay the loan through Project Gazelle Funding Ltd, an “orphan” special purpose vehicle (SPV) incorporated in Bahamas for the PxF!

Effectively, the NNPC has pledged 38.58 percent of five years’ worth of tax and royalty oil to secure the loan!

The idea of our President serving as Petroleum Ministers is novel in corruption and both the people and the national assembly should take a look at this and resist it!

We obviously don’t need an office as powerful with absolute immunity to steward our main source of revenue!

How do we hold a man immune to prosecution in service accountable to his stewardship?

Obasanjo was President and Minister of Petroleum, have we look at his books?

Jonathan was the President and Deziani was the Minister for Petroleum, it has been very convenient to sing her name at least to fan our partisan politically motivated propaganda!

I doubt if she will ever be brought to book. The impunity and recklessness associated with that ministry and NNPC should be brought under control! We should not be content with the unbundling of NNPC along product-specific entities in order to optimize value and deliver wealth to citizens.

The office of the President should be unbundled of the minister of petroleum portfolio!

Town hall meetings was the engagements during the electioneering. The dynamics must be sustained not by leaders but by the citizens to ensure that good governance is delivered!

Dr Bolaji O. Akinyemi is an Apostle and Nation Builder, Convener Apostolic Round Table; ART.

To read more from Dr Bolaji, please visit

www.bolajioakinyemi.com
+2348033041236.