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UNVERIFIED: Mr.
El-Rufai's claims on his Facebook wall
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The Goodluck Jonathan
administration only spent ₦333 million
on three independence anniversaries (2012-2014) and not the billions of naira
alleged by the Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, an ex-minister has said. Abubakar Sulaiman, the
immediate past Minister of National Planning during the Goodluck Jonathan
presidency, stated this in a statement on Sunday.
Mr.
Sulaiman described as “tissue of lies” the statement by Mr. El-Rufai on his
facebook wall on Thursday that the Jonathan administration spent billions of
naira on Nigeria’s independence anniversary celebrations in five years.
“We
would have allowed this to go as just ranting of a favour seeker, but for the
sake of ordinary Nigerians who were abreast of happenings under the
administration and also those who never did, we will like to set the record
straight,” the former minister said.
PREMIUM TIMES report continues:
The
Facebook post, which was widely shared on the social media, appeared to be
further evidence of the wastefulness and corruption associated with the
Jonathan administration, especially after the current administration announced ₦70
million as the spending for this year’s anniversary.
On
Friday, the anti-graft agency, EFCC, raided the home of Mr. Jonathan’s
petroleum minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke, after she was arrested same day by
British authorities on allegations of bribery and money laundering.
Mrs.
Alison-Madueke fled Nigeria to the UK prior to the inauguration of President
Muhammadu Buhari and is believed to have supervised one of the largest
corruption scandals in Nigeria’s oil industry during her tenure.
Irrespective
of the various corruption allegations against officials of the Jonathan
administration, Mr. Sulaiman said that of the independence anniversary
celebrations by Mr. El-Rufai were false.
Read his full statement
below
PRESS
STATEMENT
We
never spent billions on independence anniversary – Jonathan
We
were taken aback by the recent comment reportedly credited to His Excellency,
Governor Nasir El-Rufai where he claimed that the immediate past President, His
Excellency, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan’s administration spent ₦64billion
to cover the country independence anniversary spending in five years.
The
break down, according to the governor showed that ₦13billion
was spent in 2011, ₦15billion in 2012 and ₦14billion in 2013 and ₦22billion
allegedly spent in 2014.
This
tissue of lies was contained on his facebook comment on Thursday. Ordinarily,
we would have allowed this to go as just ranting of a favour seeker , but for
the sake of ordinary Nigerians who were abreast of happenings under the
administration and also those who never did, we will like to set the record
straight.
It
is important to correct the misinformation so that the unsuspecting public
would not be misled.
For
the record, a breakdown of our anniversary spending between 2012 to 2014
amounted to ₦332.6million. We challenge the Office of the Government of
the Federation (OSGF) to publish these details for the consumption of the
public.
For
the record, a breakdown of our spending for this event between 2012 and 2104
goes thus; 2012 - ₦107.6million; 2013 - ₦45million and 2014 had ₦180million.
So, the question here is where did the billions as claimed by El-Rufai emanate
from? Even though that of 2010 and 2011 are not handy now, but it should be
known that they all fall within the same bracket as the one stated, except that
the 2010 anniversary was a golden one when the country marked her 50 year of
independence. But even then, not such outrageous sum was either budgeted or expended.
Again,
it is germane to explain the increase in the 2013 anniversary spending for the
purpose of accountability. The National Honours Award Investiture was
incorporated into the celebration, thus making it two events in one, hence the ₦174,800,000.00
budget. We also want to add that the said award investiture could not hold in
2013 and the approved budget rolled over and was utilized to organize the investiture
in 2014.
It
is high time government functionaries desisted from abusing their immunity by
destroying history and trading on lies just to gain cheap popularity or curry
one favour or the other from certain quarters.
Perhaps
President Olusegun Obasanjo was right in his assessment of El-Rufai when he
said in his latest memoir, My Watch that his vivid recollection of him
(El-Rufai) is his penchant for lying, for unfair embellishment of stories and
his inability to sustain loyalty for long. That exactly is what El-Rufai has
done with his ungodly fabrication of lies against Jonathan government.
One hopes that President
Buhari would be on guard against being misled by the likes of El-Rufai who are
hell bent on misinforming the Nigerian publics.
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