FG $1bn excess crude money to fund Buhari’s 2019 election, not for Boko Haram, alleges Fayose

Ekiti State Governor Ayo Fayose has described the decision to withdraw $1billion from the Excess Crude Account to fight Boko Haram insurgency in the northeast region as a means by the All Progressives Congress (APC) led federal government to fund President Muhammadu Buhari’s re-election in 2019.

“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 declared.

In a statement issued in Ado Ekiti, yesterday, and signed by his Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka, Fayose added: “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 government is wiping out is the economy of Nigeria and the means of livelihood of the people.”

He said N360 billion was equivalent to what the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) shares to the federal government, 36 states and 777 local councils monthly, noting: “Nigerians deserve proper explanation from the federal government on the rationale behind spending such huge sum of money to fight an already defeated Boko Haram.”

Fayose challenged the federal government to make available to Nigerians how the money released by international donors for the fight against insurgency was spent, adding: “Even the Transparency International (TI) once said in its report that some top military officers in the country were feeding fat from the war against Boko Haram by creating fake contracts and laundering the proceeds in the United States (US), United Kingdom (UK) and elsewhere.”

He also alleged that the N50billion kept by the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) in different commercial bank accounts outside the Treasury Single Account (TSA) on the alleged directive of Buhari’s Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari, was part of funds being kept to fund the President’s re-election in 2019.

The governor stated: “Nigerians are alarmed by the revelation from the House of Representatives that Buhari exempted NNPC from transferring N50billion to the TSA and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), a confirmation that a letter issued by the Chief of Staff (CoS) to the President, Kyari conveyed the directive.

“Also, they (House of Representatives) are miffed by the federal government’s idea of withdrawing $1billion 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?“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 funds for the 2019 elections under the pretext of fighting insurgency in the northeast, as well as other dubious means.”