Reserve Account
OpenLife Nigeria reports that Reno Omokri, an aide to former President Goodluck Jonathan, has attacked the Minister of Transportation, Rt. Honourable Rotimi Amaechi who recently disclosed that President Muhammadu Buhari met empty treasury as of the time the All Progressives Congress, APC government assumed leadership in 2015.
In a recent interview on a Channels Television’s programme titled, ‘Hard Copy’, the Minister said the money left behind for Nigeria by former President Goodluck Jonathan at the point of his departure on May 29, 2015 was not enough to run the affairs of the country for three weeks.
Amaechi, who is a former Chairman of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum, said: “When you talk about bandits and all these people that kill. It is a question about poverty. And that poverty didn’t start in this regime. Don’t forget that oil was sold at $110, $114, $115 per barrel. When this government came into power, oil fell to $28 per barrel and since then it has not gone above $80 per barrel.
“As former chairman of the governors’ forum, I was told by the security in a meeting chaired by the former President including the former minister of finance that at every point in time, the government must leave money behind in case Nigeria goes to war that would last for six months.
“By the time we came, they didn’t leave money behind that could last us for three weeks. And I was speaking at that time as the chairman of the governors’ forum.”
But in response Tuesday morning, Reno Omokri refuted the allegation through his Instagram page.
He argued that Amaechi had been showing desperation to be the next All Progressives Congress (APC) vice-presidential candidate, “a situation that has led him to be pouring lies against the Goodluck Jonathan administration.”
Reno described Amaechi as a “liar” on the reserve account narrative.
He wrote; ”This is exactly what Jonathan left behind on May 29, 2015, that Amaechi said could not sustain Nigeria for three weeks: Foreign reserve of $28.6 billion, $2.2 billion in the Excess Crude Account, $5.6 billion Nigeria Liquified Natural Gas Limited dividends and over $1 billion investments via the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority.”
Responding further to the allegation that Jonathan left the government with only about three weeks’ money to run the country, Omokri on his part alleged that Amaechi had a slave mentality which he claimed made him do anything to please those he described as his slave masters.
Meanwhile, the Federal Government hopes to push its public debt stock to N50.22tn by 2023, with domestic debt at N28.75tn and external debt at N21.47tn.
This is according to the projections in the National Development Plan 2021-2025.
The Debt Management Office had disclosed that Nigeria’s public debt was N38tn as of the end of the third quarter of 2021, with the total debt stock rising by N2.540tn in three months from July to September 2021.
This shows that the regime of President Muhammadu Buhari plans to accumulate about N12tn debt in two years from 2021 to 2023.
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