Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose, Friday, mocked President Muhammadu Buhari for seeking $1billion to fight Boko Haram which the president earlier claimed was defeated by the Nigerian Military.
Instead, the governor said the planned withdrawal of $1 billion from the Excess Crude Account is a cover-up by the All Progressives Congress-led government to fund Mr. Buhari’s reelection in 2019.
Mr. Fayose, who vehemently opposed the government’s decision in a statement by his Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olaynika, also noted he was not a party to the agreement.
“For posterity sake, I wish to place it on record that I was not among the governors, who approved the withdrawal of almost half of our savings in the Excess Crude Account, which belongs to the three tiers of government to fight an already defeated insurgency,” Mr. Fayose is quoted to have said.
“Since they said they have defeated Boko Haram, what else do they need a whopping sum of $1 billion (over N360 billion) for; if not to fund the 2019 elections?
“The APC promised to wipe out Boko Haram within six months, now it is 31 months and what the APC government is wiping out is the economy of Nigeria and the means of livelihood of the people,” Mr. Fayose insisted.
The governor argued the N360 billion was equivalent to what the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) share to the federal government, 36 states and 777 local government councils monthly.
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“Nigerians deserve proper explanations from the federal government on the rationale behind spending such huge sum of money to fight an already defeated Boko Haram,” Mr. Fayose said.
He challenged the federal government to make available to Nigerians, how funds released by international donors for the fight against Boko Haram was spent.
He continued, “Even the Transparency International (TI) once said in its report that some top military officials in the country were feeding fat from the war against Boko Haram by creating fake contracts and laundering the proceeds in the United States, United Kingdom and elsewhere.”
The governor also alleged that the N50 billion kept by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) in different commercial banks outside the Treasury Single Account (TSA) on the directive of President Buhari’s Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari, was part of the fund being kept to fund President Buhari’s election in 2019.
“Nigerians are alarmed by the revelation from the House of Representatives that President Buhari exempted NNPC from transferring N50 billion to the TSA, and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), confirmation that a letter issued by the Chief of Staff (CoS) to the president, Abba Kyari conveyed the directive,” he said.
“Also, they are miffed by the federal government’s idea of withdrawing $1 billion from the Excess Crude Account to fund an insurgency they said had been defeated.
“They went on to tell Nigerians that the decision was taken by governors of the 36 States, whereas, it was solely the idea of the federal government, which they used the arranged National Executive Council meeting to achieve.
“The question is; how can the federal government alone spend almost half of the Excess Crude money that belongs to the three tiers of government (i.e. Federal Government, States and Local Councils)?
“The reality is that our treasury is daily being looted in readiness for the 2019 elections. Nigerians are therefore alerted to this lootings by the APC- led the federal government to amass huge funds for the 2019 elections under the pretence of fighting insurgency in the Northeast as well as other dubious means.”
