Fayose: I Didn’t Approve $1b To Fight Boko Haram; It Is To Fund Buhari’s 2019 Election

The Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose, has
described the decision to withdraw $1 billion
from the Excess Crude Account to fight the Boko
Haram insurgency in the North East as a means
by which the All Progressives Congress-led
Federal Government will fund President
Muhammadu Buhari’s re-election in 2019.
“For posterity sake, I wish to place it on record
that I was not among the governors, who
approved the withdrawal of almost half of our
savings in the Excess Crude Account, which
belongs to the three tiers of government to fight
an already defeated insurgency,” Fayose
declared.
This was contained in a statement issued in Ado
Ekiti on Friday and signed by his Special
Assistant on Public Communications and New
Media, Lere Olayinka.
Governor Fayose said: “Since they said they
have defeated Boko Haram, what else do they
need a whopping sum of $1 billion (over N360
billion) for, if not to fund the 2019 elections?
“The APC promised to wipe out Boko Haram
within six months, now it is 31 months and what
the APC government is wiping out is the
economy of Nigeria and the means of livelihood
of the people.”
The governor said N360 billion was equivalent to
what the Federation Account Allocation
Committee share to the Federal Government, 36
States and 774 Local Councils monthly, nothing:
“Nigerians deserve proper explanations from the
Federal Government on the rationale behind
spending such huge sum of money to fight an
already defeated Boko Haram.”
He challenged the Federal Government to make
available to Nigerians, how the money released
by international donors for the fight against Boko
Haram was spent, adding: “Even the
Transparency International once said in its report
that some top military officials in the country
were feeding fat from the war against Boko
Haram by creating fake contracts and laundering
the proceeds in the United States, United
Kingdom and elsewhere.”
The governor also alleged that the N50 billion
kept by the Nigeria National Petroleum
Corporation in different commercial banks
accounts outside the Treasury Single Account on
the directive of President Buhari’s Chief of Staff,
Abba Kyari, was part of the fund
being kept to fund President Buhari’s election in
2019.
Governor Fayose said: “Nigerians are alarmed by
the revelation from the House of Representatives
that President Buhari exempted NNPC from
transferring N50 billion to the TSA, and the
Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), confirmation that
a letter issued by the Chief of Staff (CoS) to the
president, Abba Kyari conveyed the directive.
“Also, they are miffed by the federal
government’s idea of withdrawing $1 billion from
the Excess Crude Account to fund an insurgency
they said had been defeated.
“They went on to tell Nigerians that the decision
was taken by governors of the 36 States,
whereas, it was solely the idea of the federal
government, which they used the arranged
National Executive Council meeting to achieve.
“The question is: how can the federal
government alone spend almost half of the
Excess Crude money that belongs to the three
tiers of government (i.e. Federal Government,
States and Local Councils)?
“The reality is that our treasury is daily being
looted in readiness for the 2019 elections.
Nigerians are therefore alerted to this looting by
the APC led federal government to amass huge
fund for the 2019 elections under the pretence of
fighting insurgency in the
Northeast as well as other dubious means.”