Yes, we made Jonathan share the oil money, Amaechi admits

Rotimi Amaechi, Minister of Transportation, has explained why Nigerian governors under his (Amaechi’s) leadership, did not allow former President Goodluck Jonathan to save oil money.

Amaechi, who was the former governor of Rivers State and Chairman Governors Forum during President Jonathan’s administration, said he and other governors demanded that money from the Excess Crude Account (ECA) be shared because it was not being properly managed.

The former governor’s explanation is coming as Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, former minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, has constantly insisted that governors led by Amaechi pressured Jonathan to share the ECA money.

However, giving reasons why he and other governors insisted the ECA money should be shared in a TV programme, Amaechi said Okonjo-Iweala was only ‘partially correct’.

He said, “I heard Mrs Okonjo-Iweala say that in the past administration, governors were unwilling to save; she is 30 per cent correct and 70 per cent incorrect. In 2009, we had an economic crisis so President Yar’Adua put $1billion in the economy so no one felt the crisis. I can’t remember what was left in that account, the excess crude account.

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“During Goodluck Jonathan, every month when the governors went for the economic council meeting, the amount in the account kept dropping. If we asked about what happened to the money, the response we got was that the president approved for it to be spent.

“So we said can we please share this money because the rate at which it was going, the president would have continually approved $1billion to spend and we won’t know what we are spending for and they won’t give us an account.

“So we told the vice president and the minister for finance that there was a need for us to share part of this money and we began to agitate. They now agreed to share part of the money and they did. In the first six months of Goodluck Jonathan, oil subsidy increased. Governors started complaining and then we had a meeting in the office of the president’s wife.

“At the meeting, we asked for assurance that the presidency would no longer collect for oil subsidy and he promised. It is not right for Mrs Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to say governors were not willing to save; governors were willing to save but we insisted on sharing the money when we saw that the money was not properly managed.”

By Ebere Ndukwu …

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