Abuja, December 9, 2015

OKONJO-IWEALA DESCRIBES AS BASELESS ALLEGATIONS OF “ILLEGAL DIVERSION”
OF ABACHA FUNDS

SAYS THIS LEVEL OF PERSECUTION AND HARASSMENT UNPRECEDENTED, SIGNALS DANGER OF FIGHTING CORRUPTION IN OFFICE

As part of the campaign of falsehood against former Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala by Edo Governor, Adams Oshiomhole and other powerful and corrupt interests, another baseless story has been published by some online media. To achieve their evil propaganda objective of tarnishing her name, these evil elements have distorted the contents of a memo dated January 20, 2015 in which the former Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala responded to a request by the former National Security Adviser, Col Ibrahim Dasuki (retired) for funds to prosecute the terror war against Boko Haram.

Here are the facts:

• The central responsibility of the Minister of Finance IS to find sources of funding for the financing of approved national priorities such as security, job creation and infrastructure.

• It will be recalled that throughout 2014, there were public complaints by the military hierarchy to President Goodluck Jonathan about the inadequacy of funds to fight the anti-terror war in the North East, resulting in Boko Haram making gains and even taking territories. A lot of the criticism was directed at the Federal Ministry of Finance under Dr Okonjo-Iweala which was accused of not doing enough to find funds for the operations.

• In fact, the Ministry, on several occasions, had to call press conferences to provide details of budgetary spending on the military, to show, against the background of limited resources and other urgent national priorities, that it was doing its best on funding security.

• It was about this time that some new Abacha funds of about $322m were returned with another $700m still expected to be returned. (This is not to be confused with the Abacha funds returned in 2005-2006 under the Obasanjo government whose use for developmental purposes was monitored by the World Bank as earlier explained by Dr Okonjo-Iweala).

• Former President Jonathan set up a Committee comprising of the former Minister of Justice, former NSA and the former Minister of Finance to determine how best to use both the returned and expected funds for development.

• The NSA made a case for using the returned funds for urgent security operations since, he noted, there cannot be any development without peace and security. Based on this, a decision was taken to deploy about $322m for the military operations, while the expected $700m would be applied for development programmes as originally conceived.

• Following the discussions and based on the urgency of the NSA’s memo, Dr Okonjo-Iweala requested the President to approve the transfer of the requested amount to the NSA’s Office for the specified purposes.

• But, as captured in the memo, she insisted on three conditions:

a. only a part, not the entire Abacha funds would be spent on the arms; the rest would be invested in developmental projects as originally conceived

b. the money was to be treated as borrowed funds which would be paid back as soon as possible

c. the NSA’s office was to account for the spending to the President who was the Commander in Chief, given the fact that the Minister of Finance is not part of the security architecture and does not participate in the Security Council.

• The attempt to link the former Minister’s name to any misuse of these funds for any purpose other than security as far as she understood it is totally false and cannot stand.


Paul C Nwabuikwu
Media Adviser to Dr Okonjo-Iweala

feldido:
They think this woman is Naive like them... She knows what she's doing.
She's not shaking, no matter what they try to do.

sonOfLucifer:

This woman meticulously made sure her hands were 'clean'.

doctokwus:
Another over rated ph.D holder giving another uttely repugnant defence to cover her crass incompetence and complicity in the ra pe of our national treasury.

As part of the campaign of falsehood against former
Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala by Edo
Governor, Adams Oshiomhole and other powerful and
corrupt interests, another baseless story has been
published by some online media. To achieve their evil
propaganda objective of tarnishing her name, these evil
elements have distorted the contents of a memo dated
January 20, 2015 in which the former Minister of Finance,
Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala responded to a request by the
former National Security Adviser, Col Ibrahim Dasuki
(retired) for funds to prosecute the terror war against
Boko Haram.
Here are the facts:
• The central responsibility of the Minister of Finance IS to
find sources of funding for the financing of approved
national priorities such as security, job creation and
infrastructure.
• It will be recalled that throughout 2014, there were public
complaints by the military hierarchy to President Goodluck
Jonathan about the inadequacy of funds to fight the anti-
terror war in the North East, resulting in Boko Haram
making gains and even taking territories. A lot of the
criticism was directed at the Federal Ministry of Finance
under Dr Okonjo-Iweala which was accused of not doing
enough to find funds for the operations.
• In fact, the Ministry, on several occasions, had to call
press conferences to provide details of budgetary
spending on the military, to show, against the background
of limited resources and other urgent national priorities,
that it was doing its best on funding security.
• It was about this time that some new Abacha funds of
about $322m were returned with another $700m still
expected to be returned. (This is not to be confused with
the Abacha funds returned in 2005-2006 under the
Obasanjo government whose use for developmental
purposes was monitored by the World Bank as earlier
explained by Dr Okonjo-Iweala).
• Former President Jonathan set up a Committee
comprising of the former Minister of Justice, former NSA
and the former Minister of Finance to determine how best
to use both the returned and expected funds for
development.
• The NSA made a case for using the returned funds for
urgent security operations since, he noted, there cannot be
any development without peace and security. Based on
this, a decision was taken to deploy about $322m for the
military operations, while the expected $700m would be
applied for development programmes as originally
conceived.
• Following the discussions and based on the urgency of
the NSA’s memo, Dr Okonjo-Iweala requested the
President to approve the transfer of the requested amount
to the NSA’s Office for the specified purposes.
• But, as captured in the memo, she insisted on three
conditions:
a. only a part, not the entire Abacha funds would be spent
on the arms; the rest would be invested in developmental
projects as originally conceived
b. the money was to be treated as borrowed funds which
would be paid back as soon as possible
c. the NSA’s office was to account for the spending to the
President who was the Commander in Chief, given the fact
that the Minister of Finance is not part of the security
architecture and does not participate in the Security
Council.
• The attempt to link the former Minister’s name to any
misuse of these funds for any purpose other than security
as far as she understood it is totally false and cannot
stand.
Paul C Nwabuikwu
Media Adviser to Dr Okonjo-Iweala

Promhize:


What is repugnant and incompetent about the bolded? You need to learn the meaning of words before you use them.

You think big words will supersede superior reasoning accompanied by facts?!

doctokwus:

So part of the work of the finance minister is to approve extra budgetary expenditures.
Sometimes it's repugnant hailing from the same country with people like u.

doctokwus:
Another over rated ph.D holder giving another uttely repugnant defence to cover her crass incompetence and complicity in the ra pe of our national treasury.

ibedun:
[size=16pt]This AKPU munching ugly dishonest lying overweight b*tch has come again!!![/size]

bokohalal:
Did she know that the National Assembly must approve the spending?