Fayose rejects governors’ approval for Nigerian govt to withdraw $1bn from ECA for Boko Haram fight, says it’s for Buhari’s 2019 election

Ekiti State’s Governor Ayodele Fayose has said that the $1 billion the Federal Government has been asked to withdraw from the Excess Crude Account (ECA) is in no way meant to fight Boko Haram, but to fund the 2019 re-election of President Muhammadu Buhari.

The National Economic Council (NEC), which has all state governors as members, at it’s Thursday meeting authorized the Federal Government to withdraw $1 billion from the $2.3 billion currently in the Excess Crude Account (ECA).

Edo State’s Governor Godwin Obaseki, who made the decision of the meeting presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, known to State House correspondent, said that the money was meant to help the Federal Government fight against Boko Haram in the North East.

But Fayose, the chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Governors’ Forum, distancing himself from the governors who met and approved the withdrawal of the money alleged that the money is nothing but a means through which the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) led Federal Government wants to fund President Buhari’s re-election in 2019.

He said, “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.”

In a statement issued in Ado Ekiti on Friday, and signed by his Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka, Governor Fayose 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.”

The governor said N360 billion was equivalent to what the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) share to the Federal Government, 36 States and 777 Local Councils monthly, nothing that “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.”

He challenged the Federal Government to make available to Nigerians, how the money released by international donors for the fight against Boko Haram was spent, adding that; “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 Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) in different commercial bank accounts 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.

Governor Fayose said; “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.

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“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 federal government to amass huge fund for the 2019 elections under the pretense of fighting insurgency in the Northeast as well as other dubious means.”

 

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