Ex-President Goodluck Jonathan has described the claim by Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai that he gave N2 Billion ecological fund to states under the then ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) while refusing same to other under the control of opposition as false.
In a statement by his media adviser, Ikechukwu Eze, Jonathan said it is so easy to expose El-rufai as a liar being that Akwa-Ibom, a PDP state governed by the then Chairman of the PDP Governors Forum did not get the monies alluded to by Malam El-rufai from the Ecological Fund as did multiple other PDP states, including Ekiti state.
Jonathan also noted that States under non-PDP parties like APGA and Labour Party also benefitted from the ecological funds when he was in power.
“The fact remains that the Ecological Fund is a specialised fund with certain constitutional requirements which must be met before a state can access the funds.
“Every state benefitted from the fund under President Jonathan who bent over backwards to accommodate states that had difficulty meeting the criteria for accessing the fund,” the former President said.
Jonathan also claimed that El-Rufai was intentionally silent on the over N10 billion specially deployed to fund the Great Green Wall (GGW) project in some northern states, in view of the need to work with the rest of Africa on the African initiative to check desert encroachment in the Sahelian states.