Former President Goodluck Jonathan has hit back at Vice President Yemi Osinbajo over his statement that Jonathan’s administration puts Nigerians under untold hardship and was also responsible for Nigeria going into recession.
Professor Osinbajo made the allegation while delivering a lecture titled “Restructuring and the Nigeria Federation” on Tuesday at the 40th anniversary of Association of Friends in Lagos.
Reacting through his aide, Reno Omokri, Jonathan described Osinbajo as not having the moral rights to indict him, noting that the latter had only recently been indicted by the House of Representatives for alleged corruption.
Omokri in the statement said Osinbajo has just been indicted by the House of Representatives in one of the biggest corruption scams ever in Nigeria’s history, therefore do not have the gall to point accusing fingers at Dr. Jonathan.
“Having read through the sordid details of Prof. Osinbajo’s corruption as revealed in the indictment by Nigeria’s House of Representatives, it is easy to understand why Nigeria made her worst ever retrogression in Transparency International’s annual Corruption Perception under him this year, moving 11 paces backwards from 136 to 148.
“On the issue of debt, the fact remains that in the entire 16 years that the Peoples’ Democratic Party governed Nigeria, the total amount of money borrowed was N8.06trn. These are facts sourced directly from the Budget Office controlled by the Buhari administration.
“However, in only three years, the All Progressives Congress-led administration of President Muhammadu Buhari has borrowed a total of N10trn. With this fact in hand, where does Vice President Osinbajo have the moral authority to point leprous fingers at former President Jonathan?
“The claim by Vice President Osinbajo that former President Jonathan left $63bn in debt is also a false claim. The Jonathan administration inherited $42.23bn in debt in 2011 which were debts borrowed by the states and the Federal Government.
“Throughout the five years that he was President, former President Jonathan incurred the wrath of several state governments because his administration refused to guarantee their foreign loans.”
He added, “On Tuesday, November 13, 2018, the Debt Management Office revealed that in just 2017 alone, the Buhari administration borrowed N2.4trn to fund their budget deficit. This is besides other loans that they took in 2017 alone. That money is more than the funds borrowed by the Jonathan administration in five years!
Omokri in the statement asked Vice President Yemi Osinbajo to be more concerned over his indictment by the House of Representatives in the N5.8 billion he approved for the National Emergency Agency, NEMA, without due process, than focus on demonising his (Jonathan) administration