Edo State Governor and Chairman of the National Economic Council (NEC) Ad-hoc Committee on the management of the Excess Crude Account (ECA), Comrade Adams Oshiomhole has accused former President Goodluck Jonathan and his Minister of Finance, Dr. Okonjo Iweala of misappropriating $700m from the Sovereign Wealth Funds, SWF.
Oshiomhole made this statement while speaking with State House Correspondents at the Presidential Villa after a meeting with Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Thursday night.
He alleged that the former Minister made false claims when she said the money was used to finance the second Niger Bridge and Kaduna-Abuja rail.
He said “When I reported to the media that the Sovereign Wealth people in their report told us, which I have in black and white, clearly that they have only $300 million left in the Sovereign Wealth Fund account they tried to deny it.
“We have it in black and white and I can publish it if anybody wants to deny that because it was not submitted to me secretly. It was submitted at plenary of the committee.
“And then we asked, because I knew that the fund was $1 billion, what was done with $700 million. And they said they have made some investments.
“We asked them what they invested in and they said the second Niger Bridge and partially in Kaduna-Abuja rail. That is what they said and I was not alone there.
“We were about five governors and it was a full plenary. But we know that the Kaduna-Abuja rail was funded with Chinese loan, which even Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala spoke about, when they said the loan from China was not used for Lagos, she said it was for Kaduna-Abuja.”