Economic and financial
experts have called on the Federal Government to fully account for the N30 trillion alleged by  a former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Prof Chukwuma Soludo to have been stolen under the supervision of the Minister of Finance, Dr Nogozi Okonjo-Iweala.
The experts said the exchanges between Soludo and Okonju-Iweala had brought to the fore the lack of transparency in the management of the economy.
Soludo had in his response to Okonjo-Iweala rebuttal of his earlier criticism of the management of the economy under the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan alleged that over N30 trillion had been stolen or lost or unaccounted for or simply mismanaged under the supervision of the finance minister.
He alleged that about $60 billion was stolen in four years as a result of oil theft, adding that this was at a time of the cessation of crisis in the Niger Delta and the implementation of the amnesty programme by the federal government.
Soludo has in the statement asked the minister to tell Nigerians how much the amnesty programme cost and also the annual cost of protecting the pipelines and ensuring the security of oil wells.
The former CBN governor said the country’s exchange reserves should have been at least $90 billion by now and not the current $30 billion, adding that gross mismanagement had denied the country some $60 billion or another N12.6 trillion.
A Professor of Political Economy and management expert, Pat Utomi in a telephone interview with The Tide source said it was important to provide full accounting to the Nigerian people because that was the essence of stewardship.
“You need to give an account and the accounting needs to be as complete as possible.
“The bottom line is that we have not been very prudent in the use of public resources and there is no dispute about that” he said.
Utomi, who described the level of stealing in the country as “mindless” stressed the need to put in place systems to prevent such leakages.
According to him, the executive arm of government has done a lot of disservice to Nigerians even as he said the legislative arm has been worse.
“The amount of money we spend on our legislature is scandalous. It is they who should make laws that make it impossible for the kind of profligacy  that has taken place in the executive branch to continue” he said.
A Professor of Economics, Olabisi Onabanjo, University, Ago-Iwoye Ogun State, Sheriffdean Tella said “If we have not lost money through corruption, the foreign reserves should be higher than what it is currently and would have gone along way to cushion the effect of falling oil prices.
He called on economic manager to be transparent, while describing their polices as “voodoo” economics.
The Director, Centre for Petroleum, Energy Economics and Law, University of Ibadan, Prof Adeola Adenikinju said the exchange between former CBN governor and the finance minister showed that there were a lot of questions around the way the federal government had been managing the country’s resources.

General Manager, Rivers State Newspaper Corporation, Mr Celestine Ogolo (middle), addressing staff of the corporation, during the 2015 Dedication Service of the corporation in Port Harcourt, yesterday. With him are Pastor Nimah Simon Neebari (right) and Director, Publications, Mrs Juliet Njiowhor. Photo: Egberi A. Sampson