The spokesperson of the South East All Progressives Congress, Mr. Osita Okechukwu, has called for the prosecution of the
former Co- ordinating Minister and Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. According to Okechukwu, Okonjo-Iweala failed woefully to save Nigeria’s humongous crude oil windfall under her watch.
The former minister was said to have stated that in her first appointment as Minister of Finance they saved $22 billion because of the political will of the President then (Chief Olusegun Obasanjo), but in her second appointment it was not because of lack of political will.
Her words: “We saved $22 billion because the political will to do it was there. This time round, and this is the key now, you need not only to have the instrument, but you also need the political will. In my second time as Finance Minister, from 2011 to 2015, we had the instrument, we had the means, we had done it before, but zero political will”.
Okechukwu, in reacting to her position, stated that she ought to have reigned and since she did not do that she should be prosecuted for watching the economy being drained.
He said, in reacting to Okonko-Iweala’s defence: “It is not just a statement, it is self confession of Dr (Mrs) Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, immediate past Minister of Finance, to the effect that she failed woefully to save Nigeria’s humongous crude oil windfall under her watch, in an economy which ex- president, Dr Goodluck Jonathan, innocently handed over to her to coordinate.
“Dr (Mrs) Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala should be prosecuted for her conspiracy in squandering the humongous crude oil windfall which accrued under her watch as Minister of Finance and the Coordinator of the economy.”
