Falana Tackles Jonathan, Obasanjo on Reckless Spending

Femi Falana

By Obinna Chima

Human rights lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana (SAN) at the weekend said the ongoing dispute between a former Minister of Education, Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili and the Federal Government should be focused on the reckless spending by successive governments since 1999.

Falana said in a statement that the debate should be on the reckless diversion of huge public funds as well as what he described as the gross mismanagement of the Nigerian economy since 1999.

According to him, such debates are required to afford Nigerians the opportunity to know the roles played by public officers over the years.

Ezekwesili had alleged that the Yar'Adua-Jonathan administration wasted the $22 billion left in the Excess Crude Account and $45 billion Foreign Reserves Account by the administration of former president Olusegun Obasanjo.

In a response, the Federal Government alleged that Ezekwesili also mismanaged billions of naira budgeted for education under her watch.
But Falana said: “For goodness sake, let the Federal Government take up Ezekwesili's timely and patriotic challenge. But the debate should not be limited to the withdrawal of $67 billion from the federation account.

“After all, the debate between Obasanjo and Jonathan on the Boko Haram insurgency has confirmed that the genocidal attack on the innocent people of Odi in Bayelsa State in November, 1999 was a crime against humanity.
“We need such debates to afford Nigerians the opportunity to know the roles played by all the dramatis personae and their imperialist collaborators that have shamelessly unleashed unprecedented poverty on a nation that has earned more revenue in the last 14 years than any other period in the history of Nigeria since the amalgamation of 1914.”

Falana insisted that the Goodluck Jonathan administration is an off shoot of the Obasanjo administration, “notwithstanding the ongoing intra-class feud among the members of both reactionary regimes.”

“It is a shame that the federal government has rejected a golden opportunity to call off the bluff of the arrogant officials of the Obasanjo regime who are trying to hoodwink Nigerians to accept that the Nigerian neo-colonial economy was better managed when they were in power.

“Instead of running from pillar to post over the allegation made by the former minister, the Jonathan regime should have explained how the Account was drawn down to service an unproductive bureaucracy and fund the thriving corruption industry since 2007.

He demanded that the Olusegun Obasanjo administration should account for N26 trillion earned from oil and non oil sectors between 1999 and 2007.

Specifically, he said Obasanjo and his ministers should explain how they generated darkness with $16 billion, wasted over N1 trillion on fixing roads and refurbishing hospitals that have collapsed, granted duty waivers worth N500 billion to a few importers, sold public enterprises worth trillions of naira at give away prices to imaginary core investors, plundered and mismanaged the banks which have recently been bailed out with about N3 trillion.

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