Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State has accused the former Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala of illegally taking $1 billion from the federation account to prosecute the re-election bid of former President Goodluck Jonathan.
Speaking at a seminar organized by the Edo State government for Permanent Secretaries, Directors and Deputy Directors, the governor said the former minister also needs to tells Nigerians how the Excess Crude Account was drawn down to $4.1 billion from the peak $10 billion when no approval was given by the National Economic Council for any withdrawal.
The theme of the workshop was: “Enhancing IGR in Edo, Issues, Prospects and Challenges.”
Oshiomhole, who said Okonjo-Iweala would have been declared a pathological liar if she were to be a witness in court due to the inconsistencies in her statements, said a forensic audit would truly determine how much was illegally spent from the federation account under her watch as minister.
He said the state government would now hold Permanent Secretaries, Directors and Deputy Directors responsible for any fraud detected in their departments, saying the government has trimmed down the cost of running government.
He said: “The truth is, many things went wrong even at the federal level. As you might have read in the papers, while the federal government, under Goodluck Jonathan, with the then Coordinating Minister of the Economy liked to blame governors for wasteful spending, for not saving for the rainy day, for not investing properly, the truth is the real weakness in the Nigerian federal chain has been the Federal Government.
“Our hope is that with the new President, given his pedigree we will break from the past.
“As I’m sure you will soon begin to hear when all the numbers are published, last week, I complained aloud that Edo State lost about N10 billion over a four year period from only one source, the NLNG remittance to the federation account.
“How did I arrive at the figure? I used my 4-Figure Table and I asked myself at $2.1 billion remitted by NLNG as taxes and Shell, and by the way, Shell is not the only oil operative, we have Chevron and several others. They shared the $2.1 billion based on the revenue allocation formula, Edo State got about N2.27 billion.
So I said, thank God this money came after the departure of Okonjo-Iweala and President Jonathan. If the PDP were still in charge in Abuja, this money would have been taken.”
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