The year 2013 was such an interesting one for Nigerians. The Boko Haram insurgents continued with their havoc. They invaded schools, killing scores in their sleep, invaded Air Force base and Army barracks burning helicopter, stealing armoured tanks and taking officers’ wives and children as booty. Nigeria also did well in sports by winning the Under 17 world soccer championships and qualifying for the senior World Cup in Brazil. The gross domestic products (GDP) continued to be impressive even though more Nigerians fell into destitution. According to the World Bank, over 100 million Nigerians are desperately poor. Through the Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the Federal Government claimed that it created about 1.8 million jobs during the year even though details of the new jobs were not given for independent verification. Your Economic Confidential here attempts a review of the past year

In a most scandalous judgement, Justice Abubakar Talba of an Abuja High Court directed on January 28 that John Yusuf, a Director in Pension Office alleged to be an associate of President Jonathan, who had pleaded guilty to stealing about N27 billion from police pension to pay a fine totalling N750,000 as punishment. Yusuf immediately paid cash from his pockets.

In February, the Super Eagles won the Africa Cup of Nations title in South Africa. And in November, the senior national team went ahead to qualify for the World Cup in Brazil to be staged this year. Also during the month, the Under 17 side won the junior World Cup in Turkey.

Whereas the National Assembly passed a budget totalling N4.987trn for expenditure in 2013 on December 20, 2012 President Goodluck Jonathan returned the document to the National Assembly for amendment. The 2013 budget did not return to Aso Rock until July 25.

Members of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) on January 28, publicly decried management of the Excess Crude Account and resolved to take no further adjournments in the subsisting case in court but seek a final resolution of the matter from the Supreme Court. President Jonathan and his loyalists were fed up with Amaechi and decided to rid him of the chairmanship of NGF. First, a PDP governors’ forum was constituted under Godswill Akpabio. Eventually, the NGF jettisoned its conventional consensus arrangement for selecting its leadership and held an election on May 24. During the election, Amaechi scored 19 votes against Jonah Jang with 16 votes. Both candidates claimed to have won the election and now lead different factions. Amaechi would later be suspended from the PDP ostensibly for refusing to rescind the suspension placed on the Chairman and Council of Obi-Akpor Local Government Council by the House of Assembly.

It started with rumours that Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi was planning a joint presidential ticket with Jigawa State Governor, Alhaji Sule Lamido. President Goodluck Jonathan, his wife Patience and their ardent backers obviously took it seriously and personally. Amaechi was accused of supporting a stranger at the expense of his brother. At a public function, Mrs Jonathan openly rebuked the governor. Amaechi retaliated by further refusing to escort madam Patience on official functions in the state. An Abuja High Court then dismissed the state executive of PDP loyal to Amaechi. Chief Felix Obuah was declared Chairman in place of Godspower Ake. On July 7, members of the Rivers State House of Assembly resumed from a two month break but the day ended bloody.  Of all the 32 members in the House, only five were in support of President Jonathan while the remaining were for Amaechi yet, the five attempted to impeach their Speaker Otelemaba Amachree and other principal officers. The result was a free for all beamed on television channels and the internet around the world. The National Assembly then took over functions of the House as dictated by the Constitution under such circumstances. The House was yet to resume as at the end of the year. On many occasions during the year, Mrs. Jonathan made Rivers State practically ungovernable for the governor.

Early in the year, Niger State Governor and Chairman, Northern Governors’ Forum, Babangida Aliyu announced that President Goodluck Jonathan signed a single term pact with the North before he was given support to become president in 2011. Jonathan and his backers denied the claim and challenged Aliyu and his team to produce evidence of such agreement. Now, many politicians from the north believe that after President Olusegun Obasanjo served two terms of eight years in office, it was the turn of the region to also rule Nigeria for eight years at least. The equation was upturned with the untimely death of President Umar Yar’Adua. Many tried to prevail on Jonathan (his Vice) not to run for the office in 2011 after completing the remaining 18 months of the four year term. The argument and political horse-trading was chaotic. It is believed that desperation forced Jonathan to stike a deal with his northern sympathisers to run only one term. But after the election, those who supported Jonathan realised that the President was in no mood to respect the terms of their agreement. As a result, Aliyu spoke up. Seeing that national Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Bamanga Tukur was in support of the President, governors elected on the platform of the party from the north sought to remove him. Jonathan refused to let go. At a special convention of the party in Abuja, seven of the governors from Kwara, Niger, Sokoto, Kano, Jigawa, Adamawa and Rivers states along with other party stalwarts like former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, former acting national chairman, Alhaji Baraje staged a walk-out and later announced the formation of another faction of the party. Several meetings were held between this group and President Jonathan but little achievement was recorded.

Between February and March, the much hyped merger talks among the Action Congress of Nigeria (CAN), All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and Congress for Progressive Change (APC) plus a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) got to a head. Early in March, all governors elected on the platform of the three parties and Imo State (APGA) travelled to Maiduguri on a solidarity visit to Governor Alhaji Kashim Shetima and held a rally in a market to show the world that they were not afraid like President Goodluck Jonathan who never until then had cared to visit either Borno or Yobe states since the Boko Haram Islamists intensified attacks. A short while after however, Jonathan also paid his first official visit to the state. The three political parties held their separate congresses which gave approval for the proposed merger. On July 31, the Independent National Electoral Commission announced the approval of the merger request, thus the three parties ceased to exist and from their ashes emerged the Alliance for progressive Congress (APC). In November, five of the seven PDP governors who walked out of the Special Convention at the Eagle Square formally announced their defection to the APC. Also within the month, 37 members of the House of Representatives on the PDP platform also decamped to the APC thus elevating the new party to the majority party in the House.

On April 17, Jonathan inaugurated the 26-member committee headed by the Minister for Special Duties, Tanimu Turaki, to initiate dialogue with members of the Boko Haram sect with a view to working out modalities for granting amnesty to the insurgents. Whereas some individuals who claimed to be representing the insurgents began to negotiate with the committee, spiritual leader, Abubakar Shekau released a recorded video material denouncing the representatives as impostors and scorned at the decision of President Jonathan to grant them amnesty. Terror attacks intensified in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states. The following month, Jonathan declared a state of emergency in the three states.

Through a petition to the National Human Rights Commission and Inspector General of Police by her lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana, it came to be known that Governor Sullivian Chime of Enugu State had locked his wife, Clara in a room incommunicado for three years, claiming that she was insane.

CBN writes Jonathan over missing $49.8bn oil money
In September, Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Malam Lamido Sanusi, wrote Jonathan to intimate him about non-remittance of $49.8 billion into the Federation Account from proceeds of crude exported by the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) between January 2012 and July 2013. A reconciliatory panel was set up between the NNPC, CBN, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Petroleum Resources, Federal Inland Revenue Service and others. At a Senate hearing later, Sanusi admitted that $39 billion of the amount had been discovered, leaving a balance of $10.8bn yet to be accounted for.

On December 2, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo wrote an 18-page open letter to President Jonathan. It was a stinker. In it, Obasanjo accused Jonathan of encouraging corruption in the land by refusing to act on reported cases and shielding his cronies from prosecution; of deliberately dividing the country along ethnic and religious lines; of reneging on his promise of staying only one term in office; of training snipers to eliminating opponents; of hobnobbing with known criminals and acting selfishly to destroy his political party, PDP. More than two weeks later, Jonathan replied his benefactor in equal measure. He accused Obasanjo of being an unrepentant corrupt Nigerian; of planning to assassinate him while he was a Vice Presidential candidate; and of being a greedy and dissatisfied person. In the period between these two letters however, Dr. Iyabo, eldest child of Obasanjo had written another open letter to her father, siding with Jonathan. She accused her father of acting like a tin god and having an insatiable thirst for power. She equally described him as a selfish bully and liar.

The power sector reform, which began in 1999 with the inauguration of the Electric Power Implementation Committee (EPIC) culminated on November 1, with the handover of generation and distribution companies across the country to private investors. Although President Goodluck Jonathan promised Nigerians on several occasions that the country would produce 10,000 megawatts of electricity by the end of the year, it turned out to be one of his usual promises never meant to be kept.

The world was further scandalised by impunity in Nigeria when it came to the open that the Minister of Aviation, stella Oduah had purchased two bullet proof cars for herself from the purse of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) at an over-invoiced price of N255 million ($1.6 million). As usual of him, President Jonathan set up a committee to probe the matter. The report was expected within two weeks but since October, nothing was heard of it again. At the House of Representatives however, a probe committee discovered shady deals in the matter including discrepancies in the chassis numbers of the vehicles and the pricing. The House recommended the removal of Oduah from cabinet.

Governor Sule Lamido and his sons
Although Governor Sule Lamido of Jigawa State refused to decamp to the APC with five of the other rebel governors that did not stop the arrest of his two sons- Aminu and Mustapha- by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission in November.  They were accused of laundering over N10 billion belonging to the state government through shady contracts.

ASUU strike 
On July 1, members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) declared an indefinite strike over non-implementation of a 2009 agreement between the union and the Federal Government. Both federal and state universities were shut with the exception of University of Ilorin. The strike continued to the third week of December when ASUU President, Dr. Nasir Fagge announced the suspension of the strike after a further agreement was signed with government. During the imbroglio, former National President of the union, Professor Festus Iyayi, died in an auto crash on his way to Kano to attend the National Executive Committee meeting of ASUU called to review the strike.

Late November, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwwal accused President Jonathan of openly encouraging corruption following his refusal to act against corruption and even deliberately shielding his close aides after investigations. Some of the cases he listed include pension fund scandal, Stella Odual’s bulletproof car purchase and the Securities and Exchange Commission probe among others.

Management of the Federation account continued to be shrouded in secrecy just like oil industry operations. Chairman of the Governors’ Forum, Rotimi Amaechi accused Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala of being less than transparent. He alleged that $5 billion was missing from the account. But even though the Subsidy re-investment Programme (SURE-P) was supposed to be funded from the money made from partial removal of subsidy, Iweala replied that the money alleged missing money was used to fund SURE-P and Excess Crude account.

At a National Assembly investigation of the Stella Oduah bullet-proof cars, an official of the Nigerian Customs Service accused the Minister of Finance of granting waivers to the detriment of the economy. Following this, a national debate ensued and several newspapers accused Iweala of managing a corrupt import duty waiver regime. In her character, the Minister lambasted her critics and published a doctored list of waiver beneficiaries. Her antics were discovered and this became another national scandal.