It is quite possible that Rotimi Amaechi is losing his marbles
otherwise why else would he be asking former President Jonathan to
account for the $65 billion that former Olusegun Obasanjo left in the
Excess Crude Account when there was never any such amount?
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo and the former Governor of the
Central Bank of Nigeria who served under his tenure, Professor Charles
Soludo are both alive and journalists can take advantage of the Freedom
of Information Act signed into Law by former Jonathan to verify from
them if there was ever any $65 billion in the Excess Crude Account.
Rotimi Amaechi is a notorious ignoramus who speaks without thinking
and it is suspected that either he is speaking under the influence of
drugs or he is going senile.
The reason I say so is because Rotimi Amaechi as Chairman of the
Nigerian Governors Forum is precisely the reason why the Excess Crude
Account had to be phased out and below are the facts:
The Jonathan administration met $6.5 billion in the Excess Crude
Account upon inception in 2010 and not $65 Billion as wrongly asserted
by Rotimi Amaechi. In fact, the Jonathan Government ought to be praised
for increasing the amount in the ECA to almost $9 billion by 2012.
However, the Nigerian Governors Forum led by no other person than
Rotimi Amaechi, using their influence at the House of Representatives,
had gotten that August body to declare the Excess Crude Account illegal
in 2012.
So excruciating was the pressure from the Nigerian Governors Forum
and most notably from the then Rivers state Governor, Rotimi Amaechi,
(now the minister of transport) for the Jonathan administration to end
the Excess Crude Account and the Sovereign Wealth Fund regimes and
instead share the funds in those accounts amongst the three tiers of
government that they approached the Supreme Court, to challenge the
legality of the Excess Crude Account and then President Jonathan’s
decision to transfer $1 billion from that account to the Sovereign
Wealth Fund.
In fact after hosting a meeting of the forum on September 21, 2012,
at the Rivers state Governor's lodge, Rotimi Amaechi said inter alia:
“On the Excess Crude Account, Forum unanimously decided to head
back to Court to enforce the Federal Government’s adherence to the
constitution."
To those who do not know what the Constitution says, let me give you an insight by quoting from Section 162.
Section 162, provides that
“(1) The Federation shall maintain a special account to be called
‘the Federation Account’ into which shall be paid all revenues collected
by the Government of the Federation, except the proceeds from the
personal income tax of the personnel of the Armed Forces of the
Federation, the Nigeria Police Force, the Ministry or department of
government charged with responsibility for Foreign Affairs and the
residents of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
“(2) The President, upon the receipt of advice from the Revenue
Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission, shall table before the
National Assembly proposals for revenue allocation from the Federation
Account, and in determining the formula, the National Assembly shall
take into account, the allocation principles especially those of
population, equality of States, internal revenue generation, land mass,
terrain as well as population density;
“(3) Any amount standing to the credit of the Federation Account
shall be distributed among the Federal and State Governments and the
Local Government Councils in each State on such terms and in such manner
as may be prescribed by the National Assembly.”
From the above it was clear what the Amaechi led Governor's forum wanted.
Mr. Amaechi led the governors in taking the Federal Government to
court. The Jonathan administration offered an out of court settlement
with the governors in a deal that would have seen the federal government
sharing some of the money and saving up the rest for Nigeria’s future
but the governors rejected the offer.
In fact, the Jonathan Administration had argued at the Supreme
Court that sharing the money in the ECA would affect "the day to day
running of the nation’s economy".
Working in tandem with Mr. Amaechi and his supporters in the
Nigerian Governors Forum, the then minority APC members of the House of
Representatives approached a Federal High Court on the 7th of February,
2014, for a perpetual injunction restraining the Jonathan administration
from operating the ECA and to pay all the proceeds of that account into
the Federation Account for sharing amongst the three tiers of
government.
As a result of these actions, the Jonathan administration paid the
36 states of the federation a total of N2.92 trillion from the Excess
Crude Account between 2011 and 2014. Using the value of the Naira at
that time that amount was just above $20 billion dollars.
So it is quite clear that anyone who accuses the Jonathan
administration squandering $65 Billion ECA funds is speaking in
ignorance.
What I would advise Rotimi Amaechi to do is to take his own advise
from last week when he said “I agree with those who said we should stop
criticising the last government and that we should do our own”
It is very wrong for Rotimi Amaechi to keep blaming the Jonathan
administration while at the same time enjoying the fruits of its labour
like the Abuja-Kaduna railway and the national railway that was revived
by the Jonathan government after years of being moribund. If they are
drinking from Jonathan’s well, let them appreciate the man who dug the
well
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