Former President, Goodluck Jonathan, has debunked the allegation that he only disbursed ecological fund to only States controlled by the then ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, leaving out the opposition.
Jonathan, who denied the allegation on Friday, through a statement issued by his Media Adviser, Ikechukwu Eze, insisted that the Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, has “an incurable knack for lying”.
Recall, that El-Rufai on Thursday, during an interim report by the National Executive Council’s Ad-hoc Committee on management of Ecological Funds, had stated that 19 States, including the Federal Capital Territory, did not benefit from their statutory percentage share of the fund, during Jonathan’s administration.
“What President Goodluck Jonathan did, was to take N2bn each from the Ecological Fund, and gave to some PDP States. Any PDP State that was not his friend, like Kano and Kwara, didn’t get”, El-Rufai had said.
In a swift reaction however, Jonathan said: “It is false that non-PDP States did not get monies from the fund.
“It is so easy to expose Malam Nasir El-Rufai as a liar, being that Akwa-Ibom, a PDP State, governed by the then Chairman of the PDP Governors Forum and a close confidante and major supporter of the then President, Senator Godswill Obot Akpabio, did not get the monies alluded to by Malam El-Rufai from the Ecological Fund, as did multiple other PDP States including Ekiti State, a State governed by a thoroughbred patriot and Jonathan supporter, Ayo Fayose.”
“Nemesis catches up faster with liars than any other agent of evil. El-Rufai was probably led by the gods against his own sinister plot to confess in another breathe (sic), that States under non-PDP parties like APGA and Labour party also benefitted.
“The fact remains that the Ecological Fund is a specialized fund, with certain constitutional requirements which must be met before a State can access the funds. Every State benefited from the fund under President Jonathan, who bent over backwards to accommodate States that had difficulty meeting the criteria for accessing the fund.”
Jonathan noted that the Kaduna Governor’s “sinister narrative”, 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.
“These States included: Zamfara, Jigawa, Kebbi, Sokoto, Katsina, and Adamawa. Others are: Yobe, Borno, and Kano, which belong to Mallam El-Rufai’s class of ‘non-friendly’ States, that he alleged never benefited from any discretionary fund.
“Similar principle applies to the conditions for accessing the Universal Basic Education fund, where some States have not had access to what is due to them, because they are yet to fulfill the mandatory criteria for allocation. Would it then be right in the name of El-Rufai’s position on equity, to blame the failure of those States to access their UBEC funds on Jonathan?”
The former President, said it was sad that judicious presidential interventions to tackle emergencies and other pressing national needs, were being interrogated in a rather facile manner, “by those who never get tired of playing dirty politics.”
“Nigerians may recall, that this is not the first time that El-Rufai has vented his known passion for lying against the former President”, he continued.
“The public will recall, that in October, 2015, he falsely alleged that former President Jonathan spent a whopping N64 billion on Independence Day celebrations, during his tenure, when in fact only N333 million was spent.
“Nigerians may also recall, that this same El-Rufai falsely accused former President Jonathan, and former CAN President, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, of founding and funding Boko Haram, to the tune of N50 billion.
“We can only wonder what new false accusation El-Rufai may come up with tomorrow, as with him, it is a case of one day, one lie.
“We therefore, urge Nigerians to ‘be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath’, whenever this notorious liar opens his mouth.”
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