How FG Spent Over #50m To Boost Image Abroad- Report

President Muhammadu Bihari

THE Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), has given
itself a new mandate and it has nothing to do
with money matters. It does not even have
anything to do with stabilising the foreign
exchange regime or strengthening the naira,
desirable as that task is.
The new role of Nigeria’s apex bank is to
launder Nigeria’s image abroad.
In what is the latest in a trend of frivolous and
wasteful spending of tax payers’ money, the apex
bank in April engaged the services of APCO
Worldwide Inc., a public relations and political
consultancy firm based in Washington DC, to
help launder the image of President Muhammadu
Buhari’s administration and the country in the
United States.
In the last three years, the icirnigeria.org has
tracked many of such controversial contracts
amounting to over $6 million dollars awarded by
different agencies of the Nigerian government to
foreign firms to launder the country’s image
abroad.
From our investigations, such contracts, it
appears, are mere conduits for siphoning public
funds.
Previous similar questionable contracts tracked
by this news website include a $3 million
lobbying contract awarded by the National
Security Adviser’s office in September 2013 to
Patton Boggs, an American law firm that
specialises in lobbying and a $1.5 million PR
contract awarded by the News Agency of Nigeria
to Levick Strategic Communications, a
Washington-based PR firm.
There is also a $700,000 PR contract awarded
by the Nigerian Embassy in the US to Mercury
Public Affairs.
The latest image laundering contract awarded by
the CBN has an initial fixed payment of $95,000,
more than N33 million at the parallel market
exchange rate today, and is for a period of three
months beginning from April 18 to July 17,
2016. The contract agreement, however, gives
wide room for APCO to negotiate further fees
when necessary during the life of the contract.
According to a document obtained from the US
Department of Justice by icirnigeria.org, APCO is
expected to provide media relations, stakeholder
engagement, and strategic communications
services for Nigeria within the United States.
Read more here