Let’s face it, Nigeria is a country well known for its corrupt public officers, so when the Nigerian government announces that it is embarking on a $10 billion spree, one can only roll one’s eyes.

The government announced today that would it would spend $5 billion to fix the country’s dying energy sector and the rest would be shared amongst the 36 state governments.

One can just hear the bank mangers reaching for their phones right, time to get their Christmas bonuses.

What on earth is going on? Isn’t this the same sector that the previous administration allegedly sank $8 billion dollars into but so how managed to produced, well nothing to show for it as the House of Representatives found out earlier in the year.

Now here is another government ready to issue out $5 billion worth of government contracts without even explaining what happen and how the country expects to recoups the $8 billion it spent the last time around.

What even worse is the state governors would be given $5 billion to do as they please and many good governance activist in the country expected that most of that money to be fretted away.

According to Jimoh Ibrahim of the Centre for Democracy and Development said state governors' record on public spending was "scandalous".

"Their accounting procedures are totally opaque. State governors usually have total control of any institution that might check if the money is being stolen."

The state governors were against the government spending any money from the federal reserves, said to be about $18 billion, unless they were to given a slice of that money. This resulted in weeks of between the federal government and state governors, finance ministry sources said.

While the constitution states that the state government are entitled to some of the money from the windfall accrued from high oil prices, one wonders why they would vehemently oppose any deal that might improve the lot of Nigerians, if indeed the federal government was actually going to fix the energy sector. The scandal involving the first “energy sector fix” has many Nigerians sceptical.

Pumping $10 billion into the economy would also lead to an increased risk of inflation which is already at 8.2% but one doubts if that is the government’s biggest concern at the moment.

One wonders if the federal government would actually use the money for what it is intended for but if the past few years is anything to go by, expect another round of inquiries trying to figure where all the money went.

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