"... I hereby challenge your attempt to blame others for not saving for the rainy day. It is not a virtue when you are quick to appropriate all the credit when things are going well, but shift the blame when they go wrong.
You blame the state governors— who, according to you, have taken the Federal Government to the Supreme Court—not that a Supreme Court judgement forced your hands. For your information, the governors have never agreed to savings and always threatened court action even under Obasanjo. Why did we save under Obasanjo but not under Jonathan?.
Two keywords explain it: leadership and integrity. Governor Amaechi said the governors insisted on sharing the funds because they found out that you were illegally fiddling with the savings.
So, as Nigerians still wonder, if billions of dollars are now ‘missing’ under your nose, why should governors trust you to keep their money?. Do the states that have taken the federal government to the Supreme Court and refused to save also include the PDP governors—who are in the majority? If so, then it is fatal: even governors of your own party, PDP, do not trust you to keep their money!.
Furthermore, did the governors also stop the Federal Government from saving part of its share? If you ran a surplus budget at the Federal level, you would have had credibility to blame others or to say they did not listen to your advice.
The key point is that since you were running huge deficits yourself, it was also in your own interest to share the ECA. You did not show leadership or credibility, full stop!.."
----Dr. Chukwuma Soludo
(Replying Dr. Okonjo Iweala)
No comments:
Post a Comment