Former Minister of Aviation, Mr. Femi Fani Kayode has urged President Goodluck Jonathan and his Minister of Information, Labaran Maku, to honour the invitation by former Vice President of the World Bank for Africa, Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili over the latter’s allegation that the current administration and that of late President Umar Musa Yar’Adua mismanaged a total sum N10.6tr.
Fani-Kayode, who served in the same cabinet with Ezekwesili in the cabinet of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, said this through his twitter handle on Wednesday morning, confirming that the accusation is true.
According to Fani-Kayode, those denying the allegation ought to have accepted the challenge of a debate so that Nigerians could listen and make up the side speaking the truth of the two.
“The charge that our foreign reserves were heavily depleted between 2007 and 2013 cannot be denied,” he said. “In 2007, OBJ (short for Obasanjo) left $58bn. By the Federal Government’s own admission today, we have only $45bn dollars left in foreign reserves after it plummeted to 30bn under Umar Musa Yar’Adua.
This, according to the former minister, is something to be proud. He lamented that within the last four years, the country has just $45bn in its foreign reserves while the Obasanjo administration left $58bn in the reserve.
Fani-Kayode disclosed that when he left office in 2007, the Excess Crude Account, which had $23bn was completely rendered dry under the late Umar Yar’Adua but had to be revived by the present administration, which now has about $10bn.
Analysing further, Fani-Kayode said President Olusegun Obasanjo left a total of $67bn in the foreign reserves and the Excess Crude Account when he left office in 2007, adding that the President Jonathan’s Senior Assistant on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, confirmed this although Maku made attempted to deny it.
He noted that the debate would afford President Jonathan the opportunity to answer questions bothering on the fact that the country had far less than what it should have today in both accounts with nothing to show for it.
“I really do wish that the government had taken up the challenge of a debate that Oby put to them because if they had done so, they would have had the opportunity to answer these questions,” he said, recalling that the Obasanjo administration paid off the foreign debt of $30bn, which it met and did not borrow again till he left office.
He, however, said just few years after Obasanjo left office, the country has borrowed $9bn and that the government is not yet tired of borrowing.
“Whichever way one looks at it, this represents a failure in fiscal discipline because the Federal Government was meant to build up on the legacy they inherited in 2007 and not spend the money,” he further said.
“We ought to be hitting at least $100bn in our foreign reserves by now and 50 billion dollars in the Excess Crude Account if the government wishes to lay any claim to success in this matter. Instead all we have seen is a depletion and a drain since 2007.”
