Former President Goodluck Jonathan has lambasted Governor
Nasir El-rufai of Kaduna State over his comments on his role in the
disbursement of Ecological Funds during his administration.
El-Rufai had alleged that Jonathan gave the N2bn ecological
fund to each state under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and ignored states
under the then Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) in 2013.
The fund, which is for solving emergency problems like
natural disasters, is statutory.
Reacting on Friday, Jonathan described El-rufai as a man who
has “an incurable knack for lying” and that he was not surprised at governor’s
recent claims.
“It is false that non-PDP states did not get monies from the
fund,” Jonathan said in the statement issued by Ikechukwu Eze, his media
adviser.
“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 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 benefitted from the fund under President
Jonathan who bent over backwards to accommodate states that had difficulty
meeting the criteria for accessing the fund”, added.
Jonathan said El-Rufai 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 benefitted 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 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?
“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”, he added.
By Wale Odunsi
