Oshiomhole, Okonjo-Iweala in War of Words over $1Bn for Jonathan’s Re-Election

Adams Oshiomhole, Edo State Governor, has accused Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, former minister of Finance and coordinating minister of the Economy, of tampering with $1 billion from the Federation Account, which he claimed was used “for election purposes.”

Okonjo-Iweala, in a swift reaction stated that Oshiomhole is suffering numerical diarrhoea.

But Oshiomhole, at a seminar organised by Edo state government for permanent secretaries, directors and deputy directors on enhancing internally generated revenue in the state on Monday, challenged the former minister to tell Nigerians how the Excess Crude Account was drawn down to $4.1bn from the peak of $10bn, when no approval was given by the National Economic Council for any withdrawals.

He also called for a forensic audit to determine the true amount which he said was illegally spent from the Federation Account under her watch as a minister.

The governor 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 am sure you will soon begin to hear when all the numbers are published. Last week, I complained aloud that Edo State lost about N10bn 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 Four-Figure Table and I asked myself at $2.1bn 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 $2.1bn based on the revenue allocation formula, Edo State got about N2.27bn. 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.

“That is not the only money Edo State Government has lost. You have heard of the last instalment of $4.1bn that was in the Excess Crude Account as of November, 2014, and from that time till today, we have not, when I say we– federal, states and local governments have not touched that money. We have not agreed to take anything out of it, and yet it has been drawn down to about $2bn, which means $2.1bn disappeared.

“But if you talk to those oil marketers, they will tell you that within that period, they were paid $1bn, not $2.1b. So in truth, about $1bn was taken for election purposes and Edo State’s share of that should have been about N4.6bn from that $2.1bn that Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the former Minister of Finance illegally took from Excess Crude account.

Oshiomhole added, “Governments have lost a lot of money and the $2.1bn, that is Edo State’s share of that, because that would have included derivation, we would have made about N2.6bn. That, we have lost now to Okonjo-Iweala. Now that she claimed she used it, between herself and the last President, they agreed to take the money to pay oil marketers.”

Rea ting to the statement, Okonjo-Iweala, described Oshiomhole’s accusations as “another false, baseless allegation against Okonjo-Iweala.

In statement issued by Paul C Nwabuikwu, media adviser Okonjo-Iweala said that  “The allegation by Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State that former Minister of Finance Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala spent $1 billion out of the Excess Crude Account to fund the re-election bid of former President Jonathan is the kind of ludicrously false statement that has unfortunately become a trademark of the Governor in his public campaign of falsehood against Dr Okonjo-Iweala,” the statement said.

“The statement is just another example of the numerical diarrhea that seems to have afflicted His Excellency in recent times in his effort to damage the reputation of the former Minister.

“He has, within the last few months, asked Dr Okonjo-Iweala to explain all kinds of totally wild and unsubstantiated figures, ranging from $30 billion, $20 billion, $2.1 billion, N720 billion and now $1 billion.”

Okonjo-Iweala then stated that Oshiomhole’s accusations totally lack any credibility. ” Governor Oshiomhole’s published comments also contain other falsehoods. For instance, he quoted Dr Okonjo-Iweala as saying that she and the Finance Commissioners of the 36 states approved the spending of $2.1 billion out of the Excess Crude Account, adding that the Commissioners had disowned the statement. This is also a complete distortion.

“Dr Okonjo-Iweala never said the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) approved spending out of the ECA. Rather as the Commissioners themselves stated, the former Minister of State Finance informed them that former President Jonathan approved the expenditure to end the debilitating fuel queues across the country.

“As Nigerians know, the Finance Ministry under Okonjo-Iweala regularly published details of revenue allocations from the ECA in national media. So Oshiomhole’s tortured “calculations” based on his “four figure tables” are mere political numbers conjured to achieve a political purpose. Nigerians can see through the elaborate antics.

“Governor Oshiomhole’s latest statement, like earlier ones, labours to give the impression that the entire FAAC process which involves the Federal Government and the 36 states of the Federation is a personal monopoly of Dr Okonjo-Iweala.

“This is, of course not true. FAAC is a long standing national platform for allocating revenues chaired by the Minister of State Finance. The governor’s insistence on pushing this clearly fictional narrative underscores his desperation.

“It is instructive that Governor Oshiomhole is a key member of the committee set up by the National Economic Council to investigate the ECA spending. His continuing attacks against Dr Okonjo-Iweala seem to suggest that he has lost confidence in this platform which he deployed to make some of his initial false and baseless allegations. The Governor does not seem to appreciate that he is undermining the very credibility of the committee.

“Once again, we ask: why are Oshiomhole and his cohorts so ready to sacrifice truth, precedent and decency in this political witch hunt against Dr Okonjo-Iweala? We are confident that they will fail because truth will triumph,” the statement read.