Showing posts with label oby Ezekwesili. Show all posts
Showing posts with label oby Ezekwesili. Show all posts
Oby Ezekwesili- My Demand For Accountability In The Last Administration Cause Me To Lost 6 International Appoinment
Oby Ezekwesili Discredits Ex-minister's claim that President Jonathan left $30bn in Treasury
In a series of tweets, the former Minister clearly disagreed with the immediate past Minister/Deputy Chairman, National Planning Commission (NPC), Dr. Abubakar Sulaiman who claims former President Jonathan left $30 billion in the national treasury. Read her tweets below...
President Jonathan Is No Hero - Oby Ezekwesili
Former minister, Oby Ezekwesili took to her Twitter account to announce that GEJ is no hero. She said:
“When a review of President Jonathan’s administration is done, we’ll realise how much damage sycophancy did to governance. Example? Chibok Girls.”
“A leader must be without an inordinate desire to be serenaded with ‘good news’ or their team will never let them know the true state of affairs.”
“An environment that rewards sycophancy encourages team to withhold accurate ‘bad’ news (problems) from the leader while serving up ‘good news’.”
“When a leader makes hero worshipping costly to those who engage in it, he/she deprives the ‘sellers’ market to set the ‘Mediocrity Benchmark.’”
“A critical success factor in governance is for the leader to both in word and deed convey a culture that abhors sycophancy. No hero worshipping.”
On April 14 Nigeria will reach the one-year anniversary of the national tragedy; the Chibok girls’ abduction.
Breaking News!!! 2 bus-load of Chibok girls released(More to follow)
Defence Spokesperson Chris Olukolade CONFIRMED the information.According to him, the action is still in process and the official statement will be made soon.The leader of BringBackOurGirls movement Obi Ezekwesili also confirmed the circulating reports. Her recent tweets read:
DSS Denies Detaining Oby Ezekwesili
The Department of State Security has denied arresting/detaining former Minister of Education, Oby Ezekwesili as she claimed earlier this morning.
Oby had earlier on tweeted about her being detained and her passport seized then released later. But the Director-General of the DSS, Mr, Ita Ekpeyong, told State House correspondents on Monday that there was no truth in the report.
Ekpeyong said the former minister was currently in London and there was no way she could have been arrested. He said:
“Did she tell you she was arrested? Did you see her? She is currently in London and that shows you that she was not arrested. We did not arrest her.”
BringBackOurGirls Campaigner Oby Ezekwesili Detained By SSS At Abuja Airport
Former Minister of Education and #bringbackourgirls lead campaigner Obi Ezekwesili, was early this morning detained by SSS agents at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, as she tried to leave the country for London.
She immediately took to twitter to announce her detention. She said she was heading to London to appear on the BBC Hardtalk programme but was prevented from boarding her flight by security operatives who confiscated her passport. She was later released and allowed to board her 8am flight. Read her tweet below....
Federal Government Arrests Top Politicians With Boko Haram Links, Calls #bringbackourgirls Campaign Fraud - Report
The Nigerian Federal Government yesterday July 9th, said it has arrested some politicians over evidence of their ties with the feared Boko haram terrorist group.
The Coordinator of the Joint Information Centre for Security, Mike Omeiri, revealed this yesterday while speaking at a briefing at the National Information Centre Abuja, he said following the recent arrest of some members of Boko Haram in Bauchi and Borno states, some materials retrieved from them after detailed investigation had evidential links with the politicians they have arrested. He however declined to disclose the names of the politicians.
Also speaking, the spokesperson for the State Security Service SSS, Marilyn Ogar accused the #bringbackourgirlscampaign of running bank accounts. She said the Nigerian security agents have information that the #Bringbackourgirls campaign now operate bank accounts and also compel members to register and carry tags before joining.
In a swift reaction, the convener of the #bringbackourgirls campaign and a former Minister of Education, Dr Oby Ezekwesili(pictured above) in a telephone interview with Channels TV this night, refuted the claims made by the SSS spokesperson.
"It's absolute falsehood. In fact I call it a cocktail of falsehood. We don't need bank account. This is strictly a citizens movement and neither do we need to register members. There is no person who walks over to the Unity Fountain that has not participated in our meetings. There is absolutely no truth to that and I think that should really worry Nigerians that our own state security sadly could actually put out such....I don't even know what to call it".
Asked how the campaign is being funded, Dr Ezekwesili said;
"Well its very simple. The needs that we have are so basic. Its the Tee shirts and I can see some of the people in tee shirts and I can see some of the people wearing those face caps, that's all we need and what normally happens is that all these members you see there, some bring in 10 Teeshirts, some 100. There is nothing that will need any kind of money, so you know this is really a pedestrian kind of falsehood" she said.
Doyin Okupe blasts Oby Ezekwesili after she refuses to greet and shake him
It's funny how Nigerian politicians likes fighting each other publicly. We all know the presidential Senior Special Assistant Doyin Okupe has been calling #bringBackOurGirls campaigner Oby Ezekwesili all sorts of names for staging protests for the return of the abducted chibok girls. Apparently, he was expecting a hug or something when ran into her at Heathrow Airport but the former minister refused to say hello and he went on twitter to do what he knows how to do best...lol. See his Tweets:
Ezekwesili Blasts President Jonathan Over #BringBackOurGirls Campaign
Former Minister of Education, Oby Ezekwesili has condemned President Goodluck Jonathan on his comment over the #BringBackOurGirls campaign.The former Vice President of the World Bank, who led protesters to the presidential villa in Aso Rock, Abuja last Thursday, described the president’s response, made on his behalf by one of his Ministers, as insensitive.
It could be recalled that the protest planned to end at the presidential villa was blocked by security operatives, forcing the protesters to deliver a letter of protest they wanted to give Mr. Jonathan to a delegation made up of senior members of the government.
It was gathered that the Minister of State for the Federal Capital Territory, Olajumoke Akinjide told the campaigners that the president asked them to direct their protests to the Boko Haram sect.While commenting on the matter via her Twitter account, Mrs Ezekwesili said the president’s response shows him as a man avoiding his responsibility as Nigeria’s leader.
She tweeted: “Regrettably, the response of our president’s delegation, delivered by Oloye Akinjide- Minister of state for FCT was underwhelming and inadequate.“Should those insensitive and responsibility avoiding words be the message of our president, then I am afraid, Nigeria/Nigerians are in trouble.“I choose to believe our president did not say those awful things that were read to us concerning citizens’ demand to #BringBackOurGirls.
“Facts are that regardless of afterthoughts that we are now being served by federal government, the institutional response to their fate was indifference.“It was only after our social media campaign migrated to street marches- chibok women on 29thApril and #bringbackourgirls on 30th – that we saw motion.
“Our pressure on the federal government to act – high priority, coherent, sustained, swift and goal/result specific rescue operation – seems to irritate govt.“We are clear minded that the pressure we have mounted on the federal government to act is singularly in the interest of #chibokgirls, there’s no stopping."
As at the time of compiling this report, the presidency is yet to respond to Mrs Ezekwesili's statement.It is worthy to note that more than a month after over 276 schoolgirls were abducted by the Boko Haram sect at the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok, Borno State on 14 April, 2014, the girls are yet to regain freedom.culled
FG to Ezekwesili : How did you spend N457.8 Billion Education fund as Minister?
Call it the blame game, responding to criticisms or outright quest for transparency in the management of the country’s resources, more information will be streaming out in the coming years as the Federal Government has taken the query from the former World Bank Vice President, Mrs. Obiageli Ezekwesili on how the the Umaru Yar’Adua and President Goodluck Jonathan administrations spent the $45bn left in the foreign reserves account and $22bn in the Excess Crude Account by the former President Olusegun Obasanjo administration from a critical point of view and have technically taken the former minister of education to the cleaners.
Ezekwesili , who was a former Minister of Solid Minerals and Education under Obasanjo and a founding director of Transparency International had at the convocation lecture of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, last week alleged the that Nigerians had lost dignity because of ravaging poverty arising from poor choices of the elite, corruption and lack of investment in education saying that, “The present cycle of boom of the 2010s is, however, much more vexing than the other four that happened in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s.This is because we are still caught up in it and it is more egregious than the other periods in revealing that we learned absolutely nothing from the previous massive failures.”
The former minister while lamenting the squandering of the significant sum of $45bn in the foreign reserves account and another $22bn in the Excess Crude Account being direct savings from increased earnings from oil that the Obasanjo administration handed over to the successor government in 2007, revealed that six years after she handed over what she described as a huge national wealth to the next government, most Nigerians, especially the poor, continue to suffer the effects of failing public health and education systems as well as decrepit infrastructure and battered institutions.
“One cannot but ask what exactly does symbolize with this level of brazen misappropriation of public resources? Where did all that money go?
But in response to her pointers, the Minister of Information, Mr. Labaran Maku, has said that the statements made by former minister are “even more curious in light of the fact that she has held senior positions in government, and more recently, a position as a Vice President of the World Bank.”
In a statement in response to the accusation obtained by National Daily, Maku while making an attempt to clear the air said that the statements credited to Ezekwesili was not only incorrect but rather indicted the former minister and asking her to account for how she spent the sum of N457.8 Billion while sitting as the minister for education.
“We also found Mrs. Ezekwesili's interrogation of the educational system somewhat disingenuous and borderline hypocritical. During her tenure as Minister of Education between 2006 and 2007, she collected a total sum of N352.3 billion from direct budgetary releases. In addition, she received about N65.8 billion under the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) Fund, and over N40 billion from the Education Trust Fund (ETF) during her time as Minister of Education. In view of these humongous allocations, a few legitimate questions arise. What did she do with all these allocations? What impact did it have on the education sector? One wonders if our educational system would have been better today if these allocations were properly applied,” Maku said.
In explaining how funds in the excess crude oil account and external reserves were spent, Maku said that at the time the Obasanjo administration left office, the nation’s gross reserves stood at $43.13 Billion against $67 Billion being allesged by Ezekwesili.
“The statement by the former World Bank Vice President that the governments of Presidents Musa Yar'adua and Goodluck Jonathan have squandered $67 billion in reserves (including $45 billion in external reserves and $22 billion in the Excess Crude Account) left by the Obasanjo Administration at the end of May 2007 is factually incorrect. At the end of May 2007, Nigeria's gross reserves stood at $43.13 billion - comprising the CBN's external reserves of $31.5 billion, $9.43 billion in the Excess Crude Account, and $2.18 billion in the Federal Government's savings. These figures can be independently verified from the CBN's records. , The figure of $67 billion alleged in her statement is therefore clearly fictitious,” he said.
He went on to explain that since President Obasanjo left office, the reserves experienced fluctuations, rising from $43.13 billion in May 2007, peaking at $62 billion in September 2008 during the Yar'adua/Jonathan Administration when oil prices peaked at $147 per barrel, and falling subsequently to a low of $31.7 in September 2011.
“This fall in reserves was a result of the vicissitudes of the global financial crisis which caused CBN interventions in the currency market to defend the value of the naira. The Excess Crude savings, a component of the reserves, was also used to stimulate the economy at the height of the global financial crisis to the tune of about $1 billion (or 0.5 percent of our 2009 GDP). As a result, Nigeria is one of the few countries in the world that did not seek assistance from international financial institutions. It should be noted that the fiscal stimulus used to shore up the economy during that period was shared by all 3-tiers of government, including commitments of about $5.5 billion made under the Obasanjo Administration for power projects,” the minister said.
On the use of reserves, Maku said it was fallacious of the former World Bank chief to say that the nation's external reserves were dipped into or misapplied by the Federal Government.
“It is important to note that the Federal Government cannot dip its hands into external reserves. Like in other countries, the management of external reserves is one of the statutory mandates of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). Section 2 sub-section (c) of the CBN Act (2007) states that the Bank shall "maintain external reserves to safeguard the international value of the legal tender currency" – in other words, to defend the value of the Naira. No President since the democratic dispensation has contravened this Act. Other uses of the reserves are to settle both public and private sector foreign currency obligations of Nigeria, including the importation of goods such as equipment for power sector. Whenever a ministry or agency of government needs to incur approved expenditure in foreign currency (e.g. payment of goods and services, settlement of external debt, etc) it must provide the naira equivalent to the CBN before the Bank sells the required foreign currency. As a former World Bank Vice-President for Africa, surely, Mrs. Ezekwesili must have known this.”
While commending the Jonathan administration of having restored macroeconomic stability against the backdrop of global economic uncertainty, slow growth in the United States and high unemployment and unsustainable debt in Europe, Maku said Nigeria still faces challenges, most of which were built up over a long time but Nigerians need to acknowledge the significant achievements of the administration in the aftermath of difficult but necessary macroeconomic and structural reforms being implemented in the country.
Maku described as disingenuous and borderline hypocrisy Ezekwesili’s criticism of the educational saying that during her tenure as Minister of Education between 2006 and 2007, the minister collected a total sum of N352.3 billion from direct budgetary releases.
“In addition, she received about N65.8 billion under the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) Fund, and over N40 billion from the Education Trust Fund (ETF) during her time as Minister of Education. In view of these humongous allocations, a few legitimate questions arise. What did she do with all these allocations? What impact did it have on the education sector? One wonders if our educational system would have been better today if these allocations were properly applied.”
Maku went on to describe how the economy did withing the first quarters of 2012.
“ In the first 3 quarters of 2012, Nigeria's economy grew by about 6.4 percent and is set to continue at a similar pace in 2013 according to independent forecasts. We have reduced our fiscal deficit to only 2.17 percent of GDP in the 2013 budget, while rebalancing our spending in favour of capital expenditure. These achievements have already received strong endorsement from international ratings agencies. At a time when many advanced and emerging markets are being downgraded, Fitch and S&P have upgraded our sovereign credit ratings. The inclusion of Nigeria's sovereign bonds in the emerging market bond indices of JP Morgan and Barclays also testifies to the growing confidence of the international investment community in our economy,” he said.
He went on: “We have also focused our attention on removing the bureaucratic and structural bottlenecks in the economy to enable the private sector create more jobs for our youths. In the power sector, most Nigerians will attest to improvements in power supply even as the 10 new power plants being built by this Administration are yet to fully come on stream. There have also been improvements in rail services; for example, the Lagos—Kano rail line is now fully operational and serving Nigerians for the first time in over 20 years. There have been significant improvements in road development; aviation – in particular refurbished terminals; and agriculture, where new jobs are being created every day. Serious work is ongoing to improve our ports and lower the cost of doing business and the cost of consumption in Nigeria. The government has further launched a number of initiatives targeted at creating jobs for our youth, including support for entrepreneurship through the YouWin Programme; work for the unskilled through the Community Services programme of the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme; and support for unemployed graduates through the Graduate Internship Programme. This administration is squarely focused on promoting a stable, non-inflationary, and inclusive economic environment for Nigeria to ensure that Nigerians can live better and more fulfilled lives.”
There has been no response yet from the former minister but being a founding member of the Transparency International and having served under the Obasanjo administration as a two time minister as well as establishing the office of due process, Ezekwesili, a highly revered and respected economist is expected to respond to the allegations leveled against her integrity.
Ezekwesili Is Crying Foul Because She’s Not A Member Of Jonathan’s Govt – Presidential Aide
Former World Bank Vice-President (Africa), Dr. ObyEzekwesili last Thursday at the convocation lecture of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, said the administrations of late President Umar Musa Yar’Adua and President Goodluck Jonathan frittered away the sum of $45bn left in the foreign reserves account and $22bn in the Excess Crude Account by the administration of former President, Olusegun Obasanjo. Her lecture has since generated heated debates with the FG who felt slighted by the assertion, fighting back and viciously.
Special Adviser to the President on Political Affairs, Mr. Ahmed Gulak, while responding to Ezekwesili’s comment, accused the Olusegun Obasanjo Administration, of which Ezekwesili was a kitchen cabinet member, of wasting $16bn on power supply.
However, an aide of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, who asked not to be named, said, “He (Gulak) must be ignorant. Everybody knows that former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s power project had led to the improvement of power supply in the country.”
Gulak, who insisted that Nigerians had yet to benefit from the huge investment, accused Ezekwesili of lampooning the Jonathan administration because she was left out of the government.
He queried, “When Ezekwesili was there in government what did she do?
“Was it not under the Obasanjo Administration where she served that we spent $16bn on power. Did we get the power? I’m asking?”
“You see these people are making all these statements because they are out of government. What she has said is not true, it is unfortunate, it is pathetic, because it is incorrect.”
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