Ex-media aide to former
President Goodluck Jonathan, Reno Omokri, has described Minister of
Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, as ignorant.
Omokri said this in
reaction to Amaechi’s statement that former President Olusegun Obasanjo left
$65billion in the excess crude account (ECA), but it was lavished during
Jonathan’s administration.
In a statement on
Wednesday, Omokri said when Amaechi was chairman of the Nigerian governors’s
forum (NGF), he and the All Progressives Congress (APC) members in the house of
representatives then, secured an injunction restraining the Jonathan
administration from operating the ECA.
According to him, the
Jonathan administration met $6.5billion in the ECA when it came to power in
2010 and not $65 billion.
“Mr. Amaechi led the
governors in taking the federal government to court. The Jonathan
administration offered an out of court settlement with the governors in a deal
that would have seen the federal government sharing some of the money and
saving up the rest for Nigeria’s future but the governors rejected the offer,”
the statement read.
“In fact, the Jonathan
administration had argued at the supreme court that sharing the money in the
ECA would affect ‘the day to day running of the nation’s economy.’
“Working in tandem with
Mr. Amaechi and his supporters in the Nigerian governors’ forum, the then
minority APC members of the house of representatives approached a federal high
court on the 7th of February, 2014, for a perpetual injunction restraining the
Jonathan administration from operating the ECA and to pay all the proceeds of
that account into the Federation Account for sharing amongst the three tiers of
government.
“As a result of these
actions, the Jonathan administration paid the 36 states of the federation a
total of N2.92 trillion from the Excess Crude Account between 2011 and 2014.
Using the value of the naira at that time that amount was just above $20
billion dollars.
“So it is quite clear
that anyone who accuses the Jonathan administration squandering $65 Billion ECA
funds is speaking in ignorance. What I would advise Rotimi Amaechi to do is to
take his own advise from last week when he said ‘I agree with those who said we
should stop criticising the last government and that we should do our own.’
“It is very wrong for
Rotimi Amaechi to keep blaming the Jonathan administration while at the same
time enjoying the fruits of its labour like the Abuja-Kaduna railway and the
national railway that was revived by the Jonathan government after years of being
moribund. If they are drinking from Jonathan’s well, let them appreciate the
man who dug the well,” he added.
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