Former Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has been accused of illegally taking $1 billion from the federation account to prosecute the re-election bid of former President Goodluck Jonathan.
Edo state governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, made the accusation in Benin on Monday at a Seminar with the theme “enhancing IGR in Edo, issues, prospects and challenges,” organized by the state government for Permanent Secretaries, Directors and Deputy Directors.
The Governor said the former Minister also needs to tells Nigerians how the Excess Crude Account was drawn down to $4.1 billion from the peak of $10 billion when no approval was given by the National Economic Council for any withdrawals.
“President Jonathan as far as the law of Nigeria is concerned, or any President, his approval is limited to funds of the federal government, not funds of the federation. Funds of the federation can only be approved by Governors and representative of the President as reflected in the composition of the National Economic Council, which is made up by Governors and chaired by the Vice President, with the CBN Governor and Minister of Finance and others as members
He said that Okonjo-Iweala would have been declared a pathological liar if she were a witness in court due to the inconsistencies in her statements, adding that a forensic audit would truly determine how much was illegally spent from the federation account under her watch as Minister.
Addressing the seminar participants, Oshiomhole said the state government would now hold Permanent Secretaries, Directors and Deputy Directors responsible for any fraud detected in their departments saying the government has trimmed down the cost of running government.
“The truth is, many things went wrong even at the federal level. As you might have read in the papers, while the federal government, under Goodluck Jonathan, with the then Coordinating Minister of the Economy liked to blame “Governors” for wasteful spending, for not saving for the rainy day, for not investing properly, the truth is the real weakness in the Nigerian federal chain has been the Federal Government. Our hope is that with the new President, given his pedigree we will break from the past.
“As I’m sure you will soon begin to hear when all the numbers are published, last week, I complained aloud that Edo State lost about N10 billion over a four year period from only one source the NLNG remittance to the federation account.
“How did I arrive at the figure? I used my 4-Figure Table and I asked myself at $2.1 billion remitted by NLNG as taxes and Shell, and by the way, Shell is not the only oil operative, we have Chevron and several others. They shared the $2.1 billion based on the revenue allocation formula, Edo State got about N2.27 billion. So I said, thank God this money came after the departure of Okonjo-Iweala and President Jonathan. If the PDP were still in charge in Abuja, this money would have been taken.
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