Jonathan react to 55billion Independence Day Scam Levelled Against Him By El-rufai

Abubakar Sulaiman, the immediate past Minister of
National Planning during the Goodluck Jonathan
presidency, stated this in a statement on Sunday.
PRESS STATEMENT
We never spent billions on independence
anniversary – Jonathan

We were taken aback by the recent comment
reportedly credited to His Excellency, Governor
Nasir El-Rufai where he claimed that the immediate
past President, His Excellency, Dr. Goodluck Ebele
Jonathan’s administration spent N64billion to
cover the country independence anniversary
spending in five years.
The break down, according to the governor showed
that N13billion was spent in 2011, N15billion in
2012 and N14billion in 2013 and N22billion
allegedly spent in 2014.
This tissue of lies was contained on his facebook
comment on Thursday. Ordinarily, we would have
allowed this to go as just ranting of a favour
seeker , but for the sake of ordinary Nigerians who
were abreast of happenings under the
administration and also those who never did, we
will like to set the record straight.
It is important to correct the misinformation so
that the unsuspecting public would not be misled.
For the record, a breakdown of our anniversary
spending between 2012 to 2014 amounted to
N332.6million. We challenge the Office of the
Government of the Federation (OSGF) to publish
these details for the consumption of the public.
For the record, a breakdown of our spending for
this event between 2012 and 2104 goes thus;
2012-107.6million; 2013-45million and 2014 had
180million. So, the question here is where did the
billions as claimed by El-Rufai emanate from? Even
though that of 2010 and 2011 are not handy now,
but it should be known that they all fall within the
same bracket as the one stated, except that the
2010 anniversary was a golden one when the
country marked her 50 year of independence. But
even then , not such outrageous sum was either
budgeted or expended .
Again, it is germane to explain the increase in the
2013 anniversary spending for the purpose of
accountability. The National Honours Award
Investiture was incorporated into the celebration,
thus making it two events in one, hence the
N174,800,000.00 budget. We also want to add that
the said award investiture could not hold in 2013
and the approved budget rolled over and was
utilized to organise the investiture in 2014.
It is high time government functionaries desisted
from abusing their immunity by destroying history
and trading on lies just to gain cheap popularity or
curry one favour or the other from certain quarters.
Perhaps President Olusegun Obasanjo was right in
his assessment of El-Rufai when he said in his
latest memoir, My Watch that his vivid recollection
of him (El-Rufai)is his penchant for lying, for unfair
embellishment of stories and his inability to
sustain loyalty for long. That exactly is what El-
Rufai has done with his ungodly fabrication of lies
against Jonathan government.
One hopes that President Buhari would be on
guard against being misled by the likes of El-Rufai
who are hell bent on misinforming the Nigerian
publics.