Ministers that served under former President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration have come out to denounced the allegation of Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai that the Independence Day celebration gulped N64 billion under Jonathan from 2011 to 2014.
According to the immediate past Minister for National Planning, Abubakar Sulaiman, the amount spent to organize the Independence Day celebration was only N332.6 million during the three-year period and chided el-Rufai for deliberately lying to confuse the public and give his administration a bad name.
In a statement issued in Abuja by the former Minister of National Planning, Minister/Deputy Chairman, National Planning Commission, Dr. Abubakar Sulaiman, Jonathan said: “For the record, a breakdown of our anniversary spending between 2012 to 2014 amounted to N332.6 million. “We challenge the Office of the Government of the Federation to publish these details for the consumption of the public.
“A breakdown of our spending for this event between 2012 and 2104 goes thus: 2012, N107.6 million; 2013, N45 million and 2014, 180 million. So, the question here is where did the billions, as claimed by el-Rufai, emanate from?”
He said the figures for 2010 and 2011, expenditure for the two years fell within the threshold of what was spent in the last three years and there was no attempt to overspend the country’s resources as claimed by the governor.
He said his administration never budgeted nor spent the outrageous amount alleged by el-Rufai and pointed out that the increment in the 2010 celebration budget was due to the fact that the nation celebrated its golden anniversary that year.
Jonathan also explained that the increase in the 2013 anniversary spending to N174.8 million was due to the incorporation of the National Honours Award Investiture into the event, making it a two-in-one celebration, which was actually done in 2014.
He said: “It is high time government functionaries desisted from abusing their immunity by destroying history and trading on lies just to gain cheap popularity or curry one favour or the other from certain quarters.
“Perhaps former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, was right in his assessment of el-Rufai when he said in his latest memoirs, My Watch, that his vivid recollection of el-Rufai is his penchant for lying, unfair embellishment of stories and inability to sustain loyalty for long.
“That exactly is what el-Rufai has done with his ungodly fabrication of lies against Jonathan’s government. “One hopes that President Buhari would be on guard against being misled by the likes of el-Rufai, who are hell bent on misinforming Nigerians.”
