Former President Goodluck Jonathan has lambasted Governor Nasir El-rufai of Kaduna State over his comments on his role in the disbursement of Ecological Funds during his administration.
El-Rufai had alleged that Jonathan gave the N2bn ecological fund to each state under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and ignored states under the then Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) in 2013.
The fund, which is for solving emergency problems like natural disasters, is statutory.
Reacting on Friday, Jonathan described El-rufai as a man who has “an incurable knack for lying” and that he was not surprised at governor’s recent claims.
“It is false that non-PDP states did not get monies from the fund,” Jonathan said in the statement issued by Ikechukwu Eze, his media adviser.
“It is so easy to expose Malam Nasir El-rufai as a liar being that Akwa-Ibom, a PDP state governed by the then Chairman of the PDP Governors Forum and a close confidante and major supporter of the then President, Senator Godswill Obot Akpabio, did not get the monies alluded to by Malam El-rufai from the Ecological Fund as did multiple other PDP states including Ekiti state, a state governed by a thoroughbred patriot and Jonathan supporter, Ayo Fayose.
“Nemesis catches up faster with liars than any other agent of evil. El-rufai was probably led by the gods against his own sinister plot to confess in another breathe that States under non-PDP parties like APGA and Labour party also benefitted.
“The fact remains that the Ecological Fund is a specialized fund with certain constitutional requirements which must be met before a state can access the funds.
“Every state benefitted from the fund under President Jonathan who bent over backwards to accommodate states that had difficulty meeting the criteria for accessing the fund”, added.
Jonathan said El-Rufai was intentionally silent on the over N10 billion specially deployed to fund the Great Green Wall (GGW) project in some northern states, in view of the need to work with the rest of Africa on the African initiative to check desert encroachment in the Sahelian states.
“These states included Zamfara, Jigawa, Kebbi, Sokoto, Katsina and Adamawa. Others are Yobe, Borno and Kano which belong to Mallam El-rufai’s class of ‘non-friendly’ states that he alleged never benefitted from any discretionary fund.
“Similar principle applies to the conditions for accessing the Universal basic Education fund where some states have not had access to what is due them, because they are yet to fulfill the mandatory criteria for allocation.
“Would it then be right in the name of El-rufai’s position on equity to blame the failure of those states to access their UBEC funds on Jonathan?
“Nigerians may recall that this is not the first time that El-rufai has vented his known passion for lying against the former President,” he continued.
“The public will recall that in October 2015 he falsely alleged that former President Jonathan spent a whopping N64 billion on Independence Day celebrations, during his tenure when in fact only N333 million was spent.
“Nigerians may also recall that this same El-rufai falsely accused former President Jonathan and former CAN President, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor of founding and funding Boko Haram to the tune of N50 billion.
“We can only wonder what new false accusation El-rufai may come up with tomorrow, as with him it is a case of one day, one lie.
“We therefore urge Nigerians to ‘be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath’ whenever this notorious liar opens his mouth”, he added.
