•Says days of impunity over
President Muhammadu Buhari has vowed to recover all the funds allegedly stolen under the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan.
Buhari spoke at the Presidential Villa in Abuja on Tuesday during a two-hour closed-door meeting he held with state governors over the current financial crisis in the country.
The president said he would recover the stolen funds from all government officials who abused their offices in the recent past.
The president, in a statement issued after the meeting by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, also vowed to stop all systemic leakages.
He assured the governors that the days of impunity, lack of accountability, and fiscal recklessness in the management of national resources are over in Nigeria.
“There are financial and administrative instructions in every government parastatal and agency. But all these were thrown to the dogs in the past. Honestly, our problems are great, but we will do our best to surmount them. The next three months may be hard, but billions of dollars can be recovered, and we will do our best”, Buhari said.
The president also disclosed that the state of the economy inherited by his government was worse than that of the Second Republic.
He said: “We’ll try and put the system back into the right position. What happened in the 2nd Republic has apparently happened again, and even worse, but we will restore sanity to the system”.
Buhari said the next three months might be hard, but billions of dollars could be recovered and that his government would do its best in that regard.
The president noted that all financial and administrative instructions in every parastatal and agency of government were discarded in the past.
Buhari, according to the statement, did not only express surprise that the governors had tolerated the atrocities allegedly committed with the Excess Crude Account since 2011, but also pledged to decisively tackle the issue.
Buhari also described the payment of national revenue into any account other than the Federation Account as an abuse of the constitution.
He said what he had heard was going on in many agencies and corporations, especially the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), was clearly illegal.
The president also assured the governors that his administration would refund the monies spent on federal projects by states.
He, however, insisted that in refunding the monies, due process must be followed.
Buhari said a comprehensive statement on the economic and financial situation inherited by his government would be made available to Nigerians within the next four weeks.
On an immediate lifeline for states that owe salaries running into many months, the president said that a committee headed by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, would look at the Excess Crude Account and see what could be shared immediately.
The statement also quoted the president as pledging special assistance for the three north- eastern states of Yobe, Borno and Adamawa “badly affected” by the Boko Haram insurgency.
The statement quoted the chairman of the Nigeria Governors Forum and Zamfara State Governor, Abdulaziz Yari of Zamfara State, as presenting the following wish list to Buhari:
“Obedience of extant Supreme Court ruling that all monies go into the Consolidated Federation Account; an order from the president that all revenue generating agencies must be paid into the Consolidated Federation Account; review of the Revenue Allocation Formula; refund of the monies expended by states on federal projects; a special consideration for the three states of the North East under Boko Haram infestation; details of the amounts that accrued into the Excess Crude Account from 2011, and how the money “miraculously shrank” without official sharing.
The governors present at the meeting included those of Osun, Abia, Nasarawa, Imo, Gombe, Benue, Delta, Niger, Kano, Katsina, Zamfara, Kogi, Borno, Jigawa, Rivers, Ogun, Kebbi, Kwara, Taraba, Ekiti, Ondo, Kaduna, Oyo, Edo, Anambra, Sokoto, Ebonyi, Lagos, Adamawa, Cross Rivers and Akwa Ibom States, while those of Yobe, Plateau and Bayelsa States were represented by their deputies.
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