Fayose: $1bn is for Buhari’s reelection… I’m not among govs who approved it

Ayodele Fayose, governor of Ekiti state, has opposed the decision of the national economic council (NEC) to approve $1 billion for the fight against insurgency.

At the end of the NEC meeting on Thursday, Godwin Obaseki, governor of Edo state, said all the governors had agreed that the money should be taken from the excess crude account (ECA).

But in a statement on Friday, Fayose said he is not among those who gave the approval.

He alleged that the All Progressives Congress (APC) had the plan to use the money to fund President Muhammadu Buhari’s re-election.

“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,” he said in  a statement issued on his behalf by Lere Olayinka, his spokesman.

“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.”

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.

“Even the Transparency International (TI) 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,” he said.

“Nigerians 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 lootings 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.”