The Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, Alhaji AbdulAzeez Yari, has said that the Governor of Ekiti State, Mr Ayodele Fayose, has no right to query the decision of his colleagues on the authority given to the Federal Government to withdraw $1bn from the Excess Crude Account to fight insurgency in the North-East.
Fayose had declared in a statement, that the $1bn to be withdrawn from the ECA and ploughed into the battle with insurgency was a ruse.
The governor said that he was not at the meeting where the decision was taken on Thursday.
He, therefore, dissociated himself from the decision, alleging that the money was meant for President Muhammadu Buhari’s re-election in 2019.
Fayose had said, “Since they said they have defeated Boko Haram, what else do they need a whopping sum of $1 billion (over N360 billion) for, if not to fund the 2019 elections?
“For posterity’s sake, I wish to place it on record that I was not among the governors who approved the withdrawal of almost half of our savings in the Excess Crude Account, which belongs to the three tiers of government to fight an already defeated insurgency.”
But Yari, who is also Governor of Zamfara State, reacted swiftly in a statement on Saturday, saying the decision, to allow the Federal Government to access the amount was a collective one by the Forum, and that absenteeism from the meeting does not exculpate anyone from responsibility from the Forum’s resolutions.
He said, “I am saying that, that statement was an unfair cut against the Forum.
When a decision is taken by the Forum in one’s absence, once there was a quorum at the meeting where the decision was taken, becomes binding on all.
“I am sure Fayose was not making the statement to undermine the Forum. He was just doing his thing.”
Source: News Agencies
