Adamawa State Governor Murtala Nyako has challenged the presidency to give facts and figures on the alleged depletion of the Excess Crude Account, saying that the use of semantics against Governor Rotimi Amaechi was largely unhelpful.
Speaking, yesterday, in response to the war of words between the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Governor Amaechi over the alleged depletion of the ECA to the tune of $5 billion, Governor Nyako charged the Federal Government to respond with facts and figures to the issues raised by Governor Amaechi and not with semantics.
“So far it is Amaechi that is giving Nigerians the truth. Amaechi has quoted a figure and if anybody has reasons to justify why that figure is missing, that person should give a breakdown, not mention areas that they have spent the money on, but give a breakdown,” Governor Nyako who spoke through the Director of Press, Ahmad Sajo, said.
“This much of the money was used for this purpose, this much was used for this purpose, but we are saying that between Amaechi and the Federal Government, Amaechi has given a figure, they should also give statistical figures to disprove Amaechi not semantics,” the governor said.
Governor Amaechi of Rivers State and chairman of the mainstream faction of the Nigerian Governors Forum, NGF, had at a retreat of the forum last week in Sokoto accused the Federal Government of depleting the ECA to the tune of $5 billion without the knowledge of the other tiers of the federation who are beneficiaries of the ECA.
The Federal Ministry of Finance had in response accused Governor Amaechi of playing to the gallery as it claimed that the Rivers State Government got N56.2 billion from the sharing of the said $5 billion.
Amaechi however denied the ministry’s claim, weekend, saying that what the state received was its statutory allocation and not funds from the ECA, daring the Federal Government to give a breakdown of the country’s revenue inflow from oil.
He specifically asked how much Nigeria earns from oil, what price is the country’s oil sold and how much exactly the country has earned this year from oil sales.
Look at dis old man called Nyako, asking of Excess Crude Account, he is not asking of wat his state is contributing to other state