Former Minister of Federal Capital Territory, Nasir El-
Rufai has been criticizing President
Jonathan Government on twitter in the past few
hours. Read below and you can follow him on twitter
@elrufai for more .
Nasir El-Rufai - Those giving economic arguments
for or against fuel subsidy withdrawal miss the point
totally. It is not about economics. It is about TRUST!
Nasir El-Rufai - No Nigerian trusts GEJ’s
administration to use any money for the benefit of
the people. Funds are for pocketing by govt officials &
friends!
Nasir El-Rufai - The spending pattern & priorities of
GEJ since 2010 is evidence of who he cares for and
what. Let us look at his budget record from 2010….
Nasir El-Rufai - Between 2010-2011, GEJ has spent
N9.557 trillion. N4,427bn in 2010 budget, N645bn
supplementary in 2010, N4,485bn in 2011. The
results? ZERO
Nasir El-Rufai - Under his watch, we increased our
debt stock by about $20bn, ran down excess crude
from $6bn to zero, FX reserves from $45bn to $
30bn…
Nasir El-Rufai - Under GEJ, Dollar exchange rate
moved from >N140 to N160 today. Debt stock has
doubled to higher than 2005 levels. Interest rates
over 20%!
Nasir El-Rufai - And all this is while nearly 10 trillion
Naira has been spent on government officials, trips
abroad & perquisites/subsidies to politicians!
Nasir El-Rufai - Power supply improvement?
Minimal. Jobs created? Zero. Transport Infrastructure?
Zero. Agricultural output? Minimal. Private jets? Yes,
lots
Nasir El-Rufai - Let us look at the 2012 Budget
proposals in some details to see whether GEJ is
willing to reduce the high lifestyle of those in
power…,
Nasir El-Rufai - We will look at the budgets proposed
for three Presidency MDAs – the State House where P
& VP work, the Offices of the SGF & Head of Service
Nasir El-Rufai – The three MDAs intend to spend a
total of N27bn as “overheads” for 2012. Nearly N2 bn
will be spent traveling with N1.675bn in GEJ’s office!
Nasir El-Rufai - Stationery, refreshment & snacks in
the Presidency will consume about N2bn, with N1.6bn
spent by GEJ & his VP in 2012. Does that make
sense?
Nasir El-Rufai - The President & VP intend to spent
about N2.8bn to “maintain” their existing furniture,
generators, etc, & N238m for fuel! Is this prudent?
Nasir El-Rufai - Miscellaneous spending by the Villa
alone totals N1.7bn for food, honorarium & something
called “welfare packages” – another security vote!
Nasir El-Rufai - The SGF & Head of Service have over
N2.5bn for these “miscellaneous expenses” including
nearly N300m for “welfare” & N270m “security vote”!
Nasir El-Rufai - Why can’t some of these areas of
waste be cut to fund capital projects & others that
benefit the populace like the fuel subsidy?

Nasir El-Rufai - In the 2012 budget, NASS intends to
spend N150bn on itself, the same amount as in 2011
to pay those huge allowances. It has NOT been
reduced
Nasir El-Rufai - So we will spend about N320m for
every NASS member in 2012, as we did in 2011.
Where is the shared sacrifice? Where is
accountability?
Nasir El-Rufai - In 2012, FG will spend an average of
N2.47m on every federal employee. It spent about
N3.2 m on every ex-militant in 2011. What about us?
Nasir El-Rufai - We must resist the N8,000 tax being
imposed on every man, woman & child to fund the
fuel subsidy & insist that FG cuts its own
wastefulness!
Nasir El-Rufai - I will tweet further details of the
budget in due course….we must sensitize our NASS
members to rise to the occasion & rewrite this budget
Nasir El-Rufai - The issue with GEJ is simply that of
trust. He has wasted huge financial resources & put
us in debt in the last 20 months. We must be wary!
Nasir El-Rufai - We cannot trust with more money as
he will only waste more of it. That is the issue & he
can only earn that trust through small steps.