President Buhari Lacks Good Advise — Ekiti Governor, Fayemi

The governor of Ekiti State, Kayode Fayemi has expressed concern over the manner President Muhammadu Buhari is handling the issue of recovered loot, saying the president apears to be lacking the required advice from relevant quarters.

Fayemi made this known on ARISE Television Newsday programme, monitored by PlatinumPost on Thursday in Abuja.

He said when the issue of recovered loots came up which was relooted, the governor’s forum communicated the Attorney General of the Federation that the said money did not belong to the federal government but the federation account.

Fayemi, who is the chairman of Nigeria’s Governors Forum, lamented that the National Economic Council, NEC, whose membership includes all governors and the Vice President Yemi Osibajo as Chairman , is being sidelined where decisions on issues of importance are being reached.

He said it was unheard of that a decision on what to do with recovered loots can be taken without inputs from the governors.

He said: ” Our President is a stickler for the rule of law and due process. And sometimes he doesn’t get a comprehensive advice from those who are the technical people in charge of some of these issues. When the matter around recovered loots came up, we communicated with the Honorable Attorney General of the federation over our concern about the source of the money that was allegedly looted which in our view was from the federation account. It was not federal government money.

” So when you want to return the loots, you cannot just say you are returning that money and the federal government decided to do whatever he chooses to do with it. We would have preferred a situation in which the funds are returned to the federation account and whatever the government chooses to do with it, there are mechanism in government that will allow governors to also partake in that discussion.

” That is why we have a National Economic Council, NEC, where we are members and the Vice President is the chair of the NEC. And we take collective decision on issues that are germane to both the federal and the sub-nationals. That was all that we were pleading for. It was not a case of been adverse to whatever the government has chosen to do with the recovered loots. But we felt you cannot take a decision on it without our inputs as a critical actors in the federation.”

On the issue of proposed 3 per cent revenue from federation account for Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) and what will be the likely position of the Southetn governors when they meet again, the governor said he did not know what they will discuss since he doesn’t speak for them.

He noted that the concern of the governors of is that whatever is being taken from the federation account should be spread across few areas.

” I don’t know what they will discuss when they gather. What is of primary concern to me and the people I speak for is the entire forum of Nigeria governors. And this is a matter that the entire forum has discussed extensively and we have come to certain conclusion about what is got from TETFUND whether it is three percent or not.

” For us, our concerns there is that whatever you are taking to this places is a depletion from the federation account. That money will not go to the federation account, it will be spread across the few areas that you described as Frontier basins rather than to the entire federation. And we worried about the entire federation. Not about the selected part of the federation.

” For us as governors, that is a distinction without a difference. We are talking of depletion from the federation account whether it is 3%, or 30%, it is money that should come to the federation account that will then be subjected to fair and equitable distribution on extant principles of sharing rather than one that is going to be at the whims and caprices of this new limited companies that governors are not part of, ” he said.