Edo State governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, has again accused the immediate past government of former President Goodluck Jonathan of tampering with the pension funds to the tune of N3.7 trillion.
Oshiomole’s latest revelation followed the prosecution of the former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Deziani Alison-Madueke, in London on allegations of corrupt enrichment.
According to Oshiomhole, the past administration grossly thrived in corruption and embezzlement of public funds.
The governor, who spoke to State House Correspondents in Abuja in the presidential villa, Abuja yesterday, submitted that Madueke’s case was the tip of the iceberg, saying Jonathan’s administration perpetrated monumental fraud against the Nigerian state.
He said: “For me, I don’t think anybody should be surprised because the most favorable commentators on the Nigerian condition, both the economy, the polity and society, everybody agree that our economy was badly mismanaged over the past several years.
“I have not seen one commentator that disagrees. Even when they talk about rebasing and so what. Have you rebased the level of poverty? Have you rebased prosperity? Have you rebased unemployment? Have you rebased homelessness? Have you rebased hunger? So I have not seen anyone that says Nigerian people are doing better. This was never my issue. I was only a spokesman of National economic council.”
“Yesterday, I saw a lot of analyses of how pension funds should be invested on infrastructure. You challenge Pencom and Ministry of finance, you will discover that over 3.5trillion was drawn down by the previous government from pension funds to support recurrent expenditure.
“Not to support infrastructure. Even the media here, I wonder why you want to hear it from me because some of the fuse we parrot flow from what we have read from your electronic media and print media arising from what you have observed.
“There have been probes, there have been revelations, where whistle blowers have been removed from office, they became guilty for speaking out. I believe time will tell how much was taken and who was involved. I think what you are hearing now is like appetizer. It’s sickening. It used to come from America, now it’s Britain.”
No personal vendetta
The governor, however, stated that he was not on a personal political vendetta but speaking the truth to give vent to good governance.
He also stated that he was the happiest Nigerian to live in the times of change under President Muhammadu’s Buhari’s administration.
“In this country when you speak out, all the arrows should be fashioned to attack. But one of the things I learnt in life at the age of 17 when I got into the leadership of labour, is that the truth does not require supporters club. It can stand on its feet any day. You can hit it. You can kick it. You can bomb it, but you can’t destroy it.
“The truth is that a lot of money was stolen and what you are seeing is just a tip of the iceberg because when you imagine what accrues to Nigeria, consistently form 140 dollars averaging 108 dollars over a long period of time and yet your treasury is empty and you were running a budget deficit, you were devoting 85 percent of your budget for four consecutive years on recurrent, you were borrowing and you draw the entire pensions fund,’’ he said.
No government involvement
“It’s not about who has hand in what. I think it’s about law and order. In other climes, institutions do their work. They are not at the beck and call of political authority. They have their mandate and the law specifies this and it is scrupulously followed.
“I’m the happiest person because I’ve been in government for seven years without being in power. I was in government, I couldn’t call a commissioner of police and talk as a security officer. I’m haunted by all manners of persons. You kill the snake in Edo, they will put the snake on life support in Abuja and they keep harrassing us. Now, all those venoms are dead and buried.
“For the first time I’m excited and happy not just for personal benefit, but for the changes I’m beginning to see. They’ve not started scrutinizing, just blocking the holes. It’s no longer flowing like before and so the propensity to indulge in those conspicuous habit already curbing themselves.
“People are regaining sanity, human rationality is returning and the idle class that makes money without office or business address whose only address is an iPad and cell phone with appropriate phone numbers are all lamenting and not sure of tomorrow,” Oshiomhole stated.
Nigeria now getting respect in the global scene—Gov. Yari
On his own part, Zamfara State governor, Yari, who X-rayed Nigeria’s journey in the last 55 years, submitted that the country for the first time was beginning to be accorded the respect it deserved in the international scene.
He said: “First and foremost, Nigeria is 55 and we are seeing a lot of progress in terms of governance and democratic process. I can tell you that now on the continent and on the larger global scale, it is not business as usual because I believe we are today, some of the advanced and leading economic countries, when they were where we are, their situation was not like that.
“You can understand the U.S, you fill a basket with their currency with their currency to buy a lot of bread, and today in Nigeria, where they are over 257 years of democratic process and the situation in Nigeria today is different we know all that.
“But if we look at the way we are going in speedy action and on the positive side, we understand that we have our challenges on insecurity, on economy we have challenges and it is a global issue, every nation has its own way of resolving its problems.
“As we are going today, we are making a serious progress more than where we are today, under a new change made possible by Nigerians and the leadership that Nigerians are proud as a democratically elected government and a government that Nigerians high hopes and the whole process is on the pipeline.”
Money becoming history
“On the question of money laundry, we used to hear of people putting government money into their pockets. That has become history. This President cannot fight it alone, we have to put all hands on deck to ensure that we support the President.
“As I watch Obama talking in Kenya that each and every $1 taken, if it is put into public use, it will be good. We should know that this country is our country.
“We cannot have any other country that we will have the freedom to move around, aside from Nigeria. So we are the people that are going to make it a better country.
“The problem is that we travel abroad and see how they do their things but when we come back, it becomes a problem to put it on the table and do the same.
“When you travel abroad and bring out $2000 to pay on the counter, people will look at you and wonder how you got the cash in this cashless society. All of us need to put our hands on deck and make sure we support this government to fight corruption that leads to money laundering. Government must come up with many ways of fighting this problem but we are missing the link. We have to set politics aside and fight this enemy.”
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