In his lengthy and detailed article, Soludo took a swipe at “Madam” – as he called the CME – debunking her accusation of him mismanaging the Nigerian economy. In his words, Iweala’s accusation being a poor manager was an “attempt to re-write history”.
Like we said, the piece was a very long read, so for the purpose of our readers, we have simply extracted and condensed 10 major things Soludo accused Iweala of in his article.
1. Unsupportive Madam
Soludo alleged that the landmark programme of his tenure as governor of the CBN, which was the reform and consolidation of Nigeria’s then 89 banks was not supported by the finance minister. As a result, he said when the policy plan was drafted and before its announcement, he did not inform her about it.
Hear him:
“I drafted a 13-point reform agenda, discussed and agreed all the specifics with the President, and his VP; as well as my management team at the CBN, and we swung into action. President Obasanjo promised 100% support and actually delivered 1000%— which was decisive. I apologize to you Madam because I did not brief or inform you about it. We just wanted to keep it confidential given the sensitivity of the announcement. It is on record that you never supported it.
2. ‘Unwatchful’ Madam
Soludo accused Iweala of busy introducing austerity measures, gradually immiserating Nigerians while hemorrhaging public finance as 30 trillion naira was missing or mismanaged in her tenure as Finance Minister and CME.
“While you are introducing austerity measures and soon to immiserate the citizens, our public finance is haemorrhaging to the point that estimated over N30 trillion is missing or stolen or unaccounted for, or simply mismanaged— under your watch!”.
He said also that: “My estimate, Madam, is that probably more than N30 trillion has either been stolen or lost or unaccounted for or simply mismanaged under your watchful eyes in the past four years.”
3. Emotional Madam
Soludo dismissed Iweala’s harsh assessment of his tenure as CBN Governor. He accused her of just being emotional. He quoted copiously from the letters of commendation written by two former presidents, Olusegun Obasanjo and Umaru Yaradua. Then he said that they are the ones in the best position to assess him and not “the emotional outburst of an angry person desperate to get even”.
4. Lying Madam
Soludo described Iweala’s assertion that in his time “there was very little separation between the regulators and the regulated” as reckless and without basis.
“I heard the comment that some of the bank MDs were my friends. Well, my response is that perhaps as CME you should kill all your friends operating in the economy or become their enemies. For the record, my successor audited all the banks and none of my so-called friends was indicted. It speaks volumes.”
He asked her to provide any shred of evidence to back her allegation or “retract your reckless statement.”
5. Forging Madam
Soludo made the serious allegation that Okonjo-Iweala was guilty of forging national statistics.
“What worries me is that this government is the first in our history to attempt to manipulate our national statistics under Okonjo-Iweala. When NBS published the poverty figures in 2011, she felt indicted and incensed. She called upon the World Bank to come and examine the ‘methodology’ and get NBS to ‘review’ its numbers. Oby Ezekwesili (as VP Africa Region rejected the call to try to tamper with a country’s statistics). Once Oby left, the ‘World Bank’ started talking about ‘new figures’, without conducting any new surveys.”
6. Dancing Madam
On Iweala’s claimns that Soludo was probably trying to position himself to get a job, he said that it was she who was doing that and was struggling to keep office as minister by gallivanting around one of the presidential candidates (President Jonathan of course).
“Pity! If I am looking for a position, I would be running around one of the candidates now just as you are busy dancing Atilogwu dance at TAN and PDP rallies, struggling to keep your job”.
7. Outlandish Madam
Soludo accused Iweala of making “outlandish claims” about the single digit inflation rate now compared to his tenure where inflation was 13%.
“She brags about ‘single-digit’
inflation rate ‘now’ and alleges that when I left office, inflation was
above 13%. I just laughed at this one. In Nigeria’s history, no governor
of the Central Bank has delivered 24 consecutive months of single digit
inflation as I did until the advent of the unprecedented global crisis
in 2008. It was not for nothing that the world cheered us as monetary
policy czar, Madam!”
8. Madam Blamer
Soludo also accused her not
showing leadership and integrity. He lambasted her of appropriating all
credit when things are going well, but shying away from responsibility
when things are awry.
“….Governor Amaechi said the governors insisted on sharing the funds because they found out that you were illegally fiddling with the savings. So, as Nigerians still wonder, if billions of dollars are now ‘missing’ under your nose, why should governors trust you to keep their money?… Even governors of your own party, PDP, do not trust you to keep their money! Furthermore, did the governors also stop the Federal Government from saving part of its share? If you ran a surplus budget at the Federal level, you would have had credibility to blame others or to say they did not listen to your advice. The key point is that since you were running huge deficits yourself, it was also in your own interest to share the ECA. You did not show leadership or credibility, full stop!”
9. Mismanaging Madam
Soludo accused the CME of coordinating an economy where the “basket of national treasury is leaking profusely from all sides”.
“Under you as Minister of Finance and coordinator of the economy, the basket of our national treasury is leaking profusely from all sides. Just a few illustrations! First, you admit that ‘oil theft’ has reduced oil output from the average 2.3 – 2.4 million barrels per day (mpd) to 1.95mpd (meaning that at least 350,000 to 450,000 barrels per day are being ‘stolen’. On the average of 400,000 per day and the oil prices over the past four years, it comes to about $60 billion ‘stolen’ in just four years. In today’s exchange rate, that is about N12.6 trillion. This is at a time of cessation of crisis in the Niger Delta and amnesty programme. Can you tell Nigerians how much the amnesty programme costs, and also the annual cost for ‘protecting’ the pipelines and security of oil wells? And the ‘thieves’ are spirits? Come on, Madam!”.
10. Out-of-touch Madam
Soludo also said that Iweala is out of touch with her craft. “You are brilliant Madam, but you need serious help. Having spent all your life in the World Bank bureaucracy largely in administration/operations, no one will blame you if your economics has become a bit rusty. There are firebrand Nigerians all over the world to draft to service. It is certainly embarrassing to Nigeria for you to be bothering World Bank economists to help you with most basic economic analysis.”
In Summary: Here are 10 accusations Soludo made against Okonjo-Iweala
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Oleh
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