How Yar'Adua and Jonathan Squandered N10.6trn ––Female Minister Reveals
"One cannot but ask what exactly does this level of brazen misappropriation of public resources symbolize? Where did all that money go? Where is the accountability for the use of these resources and the additional several hundred dollars realized from oil sale by the two administrations that have governed our nation in the last five years? How were these resources applied or more appropriately misapplied? Tragic choices."Former Vice President at the World Bank and Minister under the Olusegun Obasanjo-led administration, Dr. Oby Ezekwesili, has revealed that both the late President Umaru Yar'Adua and his successor, Goodluck Jonathan's regimes "squandered" $67 billion (about N11 trillion) oil money left in two separate accounts by Obasanjo.
Ezekwesili said that the two administrations squandered $45 billion (N7.065 trillion) left in the Foreign Reserve and another $22 billion (about N3.454 trillion) left in the Excess Crude Account, bringing the total amount of money squandered to about $67 billion or N10.619 trillion.
She made the revelation while delivering the Convocation Lecture of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, UNN. She noted that Nigerians had lost dignity because of ravaging poverty arising from poor choices of the elite, corruption and lack of investment in 'proper' education.
Recalling that Nigeria had enjoyed five cycles of oil boom since independence, Ezekwesili decried the failure by the leadership to convert oil income to renewable assets through the development of human capital and other sectors through investment in foreign assets as other resource-rich countries did with their oil income.
Nigeria learnt nothing from past failures
The former minister lamented "the squandering of the significant sum of $45billion in foreign reserve account and another $22billion in Excess Crude Account being direct savings from increased earnings from oil that the Obasanjo administration handed over to the successor government in 2007."
She said, "Six years after the administration I served handed over such humongous national wealth to another one most Nigerians, but especially the poor, continue to suffer the effects of failing public health and education systems as well as decrepit infrastructure and battered institutions."
She made the revelation while delivering the Convocation Lecture of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, UNN. She noted that Nigerians had lost dignity because of ravaging poverty arising from poor choices of the elite, corruption and lack of investment in 'proper' education.
Recalling that Nigeria had enjoyed five cycles of oil boom since independence, Ezekwesili decried the failure by the leadership to convert oil income to renewable assets through the development of human capital and other sectors through investment in foreign assets as other resource-rich countries did with their oil income.
Nigeria learnt nothing from past failures
The former minister lamented "the squandering of the significant sum of $45billion in foreign reserve account and another $22billion in Excess Crude Account being direct savings from increased earnings from oil that the Obasanjo administration handed over to the successor government in 2007."
She said, "Six years after the administration I served handed over such humongous national wealth to another one most Nigerians, but especially the poor, continue to suffer the effects of failing public health and education systems as well as decrepit infrastructure and battered institutions."
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