Former President Goodluck Jonathan has said that his administration spent N333 million on three independence anniversaries (2012-2014), not N64 billion alleged by Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai.
In a statement signed by Former Minister of National Planning, Abubakar Sulaiman, the former President explained that “We were taken aback by the recent comment reportedly credited to His Excellency, Governor Nasir El-Rufai where he claimed that the immediate past President, His Excellency, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan’s administration spent N64billion to cover the country independence anniversary spending in five years.
“The break down, according to the governor showed that N13billion was spent in 2011, N15billion in 2012 and N14billion in 2013 and N22billion allegedly spent in 2014.
“Ordinarily, we would have allowed this to go as just ranting of a favour seeker, but for the sake of ordinary Nigerians who were abreast of happenings under the administration and also those who never did, we will like to set the record straight. It is important to correct the misinformation so that the unsuspecting public would not be misled.
“For the record, a breakdown of our anniversary spending between 2012 to 2014 amounted to N332.6million. We challenge the Office of the Government of the Federation (OSGF) to publish these details for the consumption of the public.
“For the record, a breakdown of our spending for this event between 2012 and 2104 goes thus; 2012-107.6million; 2013-45million and 2014 had 180million.
“So, the question here is where did the billions as claimed by El-Rufai emanate from? Again, it is germane to explain the increase in the 2013 anniversary spending for the purpose of accountability. The National Honours Award Investiture was incorporated into the celebration, thus making it two events in one, hence the N174,800,000.00 budget. We also want to add that the said award investiture could not hold in 2013 and the approved budget rolled over and was utilized to organise the investiture in 2014.”
He urged elected officials to stop abusing their immunity by slandering activities of the past administration.
He said “It is high time government functionaries desisted from abusing their immunity by destroying history and trading on lies just to gain cheap popularity or curry one favour or the other from certain quarters.”