Oshiomhole, who spoke at seminar organised by the Edo State Government for Permanent Secretaries, Directors and Deputy Directors, said that the former Finance Minister also needs to tell Nigerians how the Excess Crude Account was drawn down to $4.1 billion from the peak of $10 billion when no approval was given by the National Economic Council for any withdrawals.
He said: “The truth is that 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 had been the Federal Government.
Reacting, Okonjo-Iweala, through her Special Assistant, Mr. Paul Nwabuikwu, has described this as baseless and false.Oshiomhole had taken it upon himself to consistently make wild allegations against her which she described as a public campaign of falsehood.
Oshiomhole and Okonjo-Iweala
She added that “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.
“To say the obvious, the accusations are totally lacking in 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.”
Oshiomhole further expresses that “Our hope is that with the new President, given his pedigree, we will break from the past. 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.”