Former President Goodluck Jonathan has taken Vice President Yemi Osinbajo to the cleaners over his remarks at the 7th Presidential Quarterly Business Forum for private sector stakeholders at the State House conference centre.
Former President Goodluck Jonathan and Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo
However, Jonathan’s former aide, Reno Omokri had in a statement responded to Osinbajo’s claim… “Nigerians may recall that lying is the most consistent achievement of Professor Osinbajo’s almost three years as Vice President. Only on October 20, 2017, Vice President Osinbajo was in Anambra state where he lied that the present administration had paid $2 billion for the second Niger Bridge.”
“I personally exposed that lie and forced the Presidency to issue a ‘clarification’. The money released was 2 billion naira and it came from the Sovereign Wealth Fund set up by the Jonathan administration which the APC resisted and challenged in court.”
“Even after Jonathan left office, it is still monies that he left behind that the Buhari administration is using. It will also be recalled that in February 2016, the Vice President again lied when he claimed that both the Jonathan and Yar’adua governments did not build a single road. This fact was easily disproved when even members of this administration, including Osinbajo’s boss, President Buhari, began commissioning projects, including roads built by the Jonathan administration.”
“Some of the roads either built or rebuilt by the Jonathan administration include the Benin-Ore portions of the Benin-Lagos road, the Vom-Manchok road, the Kano-Zaria Road bridge (named after late Emir Ado Bayero) and many more.”
“On this most recent allegation by Vice President Osinbajo, let me state categorically that former President Jonathan DID NOT share 150 billion two weeks to the 2015 election. If Professor Osinbajo has proof that former President Jonathan did so, then we challenge him to publish his proof. He is a professor of law and ought to know that he who alleges must prove.”
“Again, it is a lie from the pit of hell that the Jonathan administration spent only N14 billion on agriculture and N153 billion on infrastructure in three years as alleged by the fallacious Osinbajo. The Jonathan administration budgeted and spent over $10 billion on infrastructure in the 5 years between May 6, 2010 and May 29, 2015.”
“The single most expensive and valuable project built in Nigeria in the last 20 years is the $1.8 billion Abuja-Kaduna 187 kilometres super-fast railway that enables Nigerians work in Abuja and live in Kaduna. This project was built and completed by the Jonathan administration. Is the Vice President aware of this?”
“Also, former President Jonathan revived Railways in five of the six geo-political zones and restored direct rail services from Lagos to Kano, Port Harcourt to Maiduguri and Makurdi to Gombe. When Rotimi Amaechi took over as minister of transport in 2015, he said (this is a direct quote)”
“In fact, I think we have a problem; most people don’t believe that the railway transport is functioning in Nigeria. I didn’t even know, until I started this tour, I never knew that the railway was functioning, it was even from his (MD’s) speech that I learnt that there are some coaches or services that go to Kano or Port Harcourt or elsewhere.”
“My question to the Vice President is who built these rail infrastructures that Amaechi was referring to? Who built the only Federal University in President Buhari’s home state of Katsina including 13 other Federal Universities and 165 almajiri schools? It was ex-President Jonathan.”
“In contrast, the Buhari administration, which in less than three years has borrowed more money than the PDP borrowed in 16-years cannot point to even one major project they have started and completed. Both President Buhari and Vice President Osinbajo keep accusing the Jonathan administration of being corrupt and claim that they run an anti-corruption government.”
“If this is true, how come Nigeria made her best ever improvement in Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index under former President Jonathan in 2014 when we moved 8 places forward from 144 to 136 and why have we made our worst ever retrogression in the Corruption Perception Index under President Buhari, moving 12 places backward from 136 to 148 in 2018?”
“The truth is that Vice President Yemi Osinbajo continues to make these discredited comments because he is a man promoted above his competency. He was never a deputy Governor or Governor or an ambassador or a minister. His highest portfolio before becoming Vice President was that of a commissioner in Lagos state.”
“No wonder he was referred to as ‘ordinary commissioner’ by a prominent member of the All Progressive Congress (APC) and leading figure in this current administration.”
Recall that Vice President Yemi Osinbajo had before now accused former President Goodluck Jonathan of sharing N150 billion 2-weeks before 2015 elections at the 7th Presidential Quarterly Business Forum for private sector stakeholders at the State House conference centre.
He said: “We saw from the presentation of the Minister of Finance that N14 billion was spent on agriculture in 2014, transportation got N15 billion, while infrastructure in three years got N153 billion, and yet in two weeks before the elections, N150 billion was shared.”
“So if your total infrastructure spending is N153 billion and you can share N150 billion, that is completely incredible. That sort of thing doesn’t happen anywhere else in the world. So, when we are talking about the economy, we must simply understand that, that is the problem.”