ECA: Yari Has Exposed El-Rufai, Oshiomhole, Amaechi, APC as Liars, Says Omokri

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An aide of former President Goodluck Jonathan, Mr. Reno Omokri, has stated that in an attempt to justify the ‘dubious’ process by which $1billion was taken from the Excess Crude Account (ECA) by the federal government ostensibly to fund an anti-terror war with the same Boko Haram that the President Muhammadu Buhari administration said was ‘finished’ and ‘technically defeated,’ the Zamfara State Governor, Abdulaziz Yari, has exposed the All Progressives Congress (APC), and its members, as a patently dishonest bunch with no credibility whatsoever.

Yari, an APC member and Chairman of Nigerian Governor’s Forum (NGF) had admitted that he and his colleagues in the APC all agreed to the withdrawal of $2 billion from the Excess Crude Account that was made in 2014.
According to the governor, there was no controversy and no opposition to the decision taken in 2014.

But Reno recalled that at the material time when the $2 billion was withdrawn in 2014, both the APC and its prominent members like the then Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi; the then Edo State Governor, Adams Oshiomhole, and their National Leader, Bola Tinubu, denied that there was ever any agreement with the Jonathan administration over the withdrawals.

Reno added that these APC members also publicly attacked the then president and accused him of looting and other forms of corruption.

“In fact, in 2015, when the then Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Dr. Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, said exactly what Yari has been forced to admit to, Governor Nasir El-Rufai (who was not even a governor in 2014 and was not present at the meeting Yari has described) called Mrs. Iweala a liar and described her as ‘morally flexible’. Then on July 1, 2015, Oshiomhole was interviewed on Channels Television and described as untrue the statement by Iweala that the governors under the aegis of the National Economic Council agreed to the withdrawal of $2 billion from the Excess Crude Account and called the process by which the money was withdrawn by the Jonathan administration as an “administrative arrangement not known to the constitution,” Omokri explained.

Omokri disclosed that it was last week that “the fallacious Rotimi Amaechi repeated the falsehood that neither he nor his colleagues were ever consulted or given their acquiescence before the Jonathan administration withdrew funds from the Excess Crude Account,” he said.

Omokri also stated that the then APC spokesman, Mr. Lai Mohammed, had also claimed that the monies President Jonathan was seeking was meant to be used to impeach APC governors and rig the 2015 elections.
His (Mohammed) exact words were “With the Jonathan administration allegedly spending or setting aside an average of N2billion to impeach each governor of APC states, and the PDP-led administration using the common wealth to bribe voters in a desperate bid to win elections at all costs”.
Omokri also noted that Tinubu had called the request by the Jonathan administration “dubious”.

“But in keeping with the principle that no matter how far and fast falsehood has travelled, it must eventually be overtaken by truth, Governor Abdulaziz Yari has now vindicated both former President Jonathan and Okonjo-Iweala, by admitting in 2017 that both he and his colleagues (which included Amaechi and Oshiomhole) actually agreed with the Jonathan administration to withdraw $2 billion from the Excess Crude Account in 2014. I therefore call on the Nigerian public and the international community to note that the APC and its members all lack credibility and are willing to say anything at anytime to justify their political position irrespective of whether it is true or false,” Omokri added.