“El-Rufai Lied, We Never Spent Billions On Independence Anniversary” -- GEJ

In a statement issued on behalf of the former president on Sunday
October 4, Abubakar Sulaiman, the immediate past minister/deputy
chairman, National Planning Commission, branded the Governor of Kaduna
state, Mallam Nasir el-rufai a 'liar' for alleging that his
administration spent N64 billion on October 1 celebrations between
2010 and 2015. He added that Jonathan administration spent only N332.6
million for the celebration in 3 years – an average of N66m per year.
The statement reads:

"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.

-Linda Ikeji's blog