Pres Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday
vowed to recover billions of dollars stolen under the administration of
his immediate predecessor, Dr. Ebele Goodluck Jonathan.
He said the Jonathan government threw the
nation into a financial crisis by throwing all financial and
administrative processes in parastatals and agencies to the dogs. Promising that the era of impunity and
financial recklessness was over........
The Buhari Said "next three months may be hard", but
billions of dollars can be recovered, and we will do our best,” the Pres said to journalists after his meeting with
the 36 state governors in Abuja yesterday. Buhari regretted that the impunity,
lack of accountability and financial recklessness in the management of
national resources by the past administration threw the country into a
situation that is worse than what happened in the Second Republic of Shehu Shagari. The President, in the statement by his
Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, added, “There are
financial and administrative instructions in every government parastatal
and agency should be strictly adhere to but were relapsed. He said that a comprehensive statement
on the economic and financial situation inherited by his administration
would be made public within the next coming weeks. We will try and put the system back into
the right position. What happened in the 2nd Republic has apparently
happened again, and even worse, but we will restore sanity to the
system, Buhari assured the governors.
It will be recalled Buhari toppled the
Second Republic government of President Shehu Shagari on December 31,
1983 on allegations of corruption and gross mismanagement.The Pres, according to the statement
by Adesina, expressed shock that governors had been tolerating the
atrocities allegedly committed in the management of the Excess Crude
Account since 2011. He therefore, promised to tackle the issue decisively. The Pres also declared that the
payment of national revenue into any account other than the Federation
Account was an abuse of the constitution of Federal Republic of Nigeria .
He said that most of what he heard
going on in many agencies and corporations, particularly the Nigerian
National Petroleum Corporation, were clearly illegal and unacceptable. On the refund of money spent on federal
projects by state governments, Buhari assured the governors that the
Federal Government would pay, but insisted that due process must be
followed to found how much was exactly spent.The President said that special
assistance would be given to the three North-East states badly affected
by the Boko Haram insurgency.Please follow this blog for more updates