Buhari set to probe Jonathan…Likens Jonathan’s regime to Shagari

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With a nudge from the governors, President Muhammdadu Buhari may have agreed to probe his predecessor, ex-President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan.

Apparently in direct reaction to one of the six demands by the 36 governors who met him in Abuja on Tuesday, the President said that he would strive to recover all stolen government funds, specifically in the recent past and halt systematic leakages.

The governors had demanded that the president should look into the financial handling of the Excess Crude Account under Jonathan, asking him to ensure a check into the full “details of the amounts that accrued into the Excess Crude Account from 2011, and how the money miraculously shrank without official sharing.”

The president, who officially resumed at the Presidential Villa on Monday, however, told the governors that his administration would halt the era of non-accountability, impunity and fiscal recklessness in the handling of national resources.

“There are financial and administrative instructions in every government parastatal and agency,” he said in a statement by his Special Adviser (Media and Publicity), Mr. Femi Adesina.

“But all these were thrown to the dogs in the past.  Honestly, our problems are great, but we will do our best to surmount them,” Buhari said, adding: “The next three months may be hard, but billions of dollars can be recovered, and we will do our best.”

In apparent reference to Jonathan administration, the president expressed dismay on how the governors had tolerated the financial handling of the Excess Crude Account since 2011.

Buhari, however, assured the governors that he would tackle the matter decisively.

According to him, the payment of national revenue into any account other than the Federation Account was an abuse of the constitution.

He disclosed that what he heard was going on in many agencies and corporations, particularly the NNPC, was clearly illegal.

Buhari assured the governors that the Federal Government would refund the monies spent on federal projects by the state governments.

But he insisted that due process must be followed, just as he promised special assistance for the three North Eastern states that were badly affected by the series of attacks carried out by the Boko Haram insurgents.

Buhari also stressed that a comprehensive statement on the economic and financial situation inherited from Jonathan administration would be disclosed within the next four weeks.

He said:“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.”

The president  also stated that a committee headed by the Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, would look at the Excess Crude Account and see what can be shared immediately as lifeline for states that owe salaries running into many months.

Earlier, the governors, led by Chairman of the Governors Forum, Abdulaziz Yari, who is the Zamfara State Governor, had presented a wish list to the President that included obedience of extant Supreme Court ruling that all monies must go into the Consolidated Federation Account and an order from the President that all revenue generating agencies must pay into the Consolidated Federation Account.

The governors also demanded a review of the Revenue Allocation Formula, refund of the monies expended by states on federal projects, and a special consideration for the three states of the North East under Boko Haram infestation.