President Goodluck Jonathan on Monday met behind closed-doors with governors of oil producing states inside the Presidential Villa, Abuja. The meeting came less than 24 hours after the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, challenged state governors to tell Nigerians what they do with the huge allocations they receive regularly from the Federal Government. Okonjo-Iweala, who claimed that many of the states get monetary allocations that far outweigh the annual budget of some neigbouring countries, also attended the meeting with the President. The governors in attendance included Godswill Akpabio (Akwa Ibom); Theodore Orji (Abia); Lyel Imoke (Cross Rivers); Emmanuel Uduaghan (Delta) and Adams Oshiomhole (Edo). Bayelsa and Imo States were represented by their deputy governors at the meeting also attended by Vice President Namadi and some other top government officials. Those who attended the meeting did not speak with State House correspondents at the end of the parley. While Uduaghan and Orji told journalists that Akpabio would brief them on the outcome of the meeting, the Akwa Ibom State governor later told reporters he was not mandated by the President to talk to them. Okonjo-Iweala had while speaking on Sunday at the Babcock University’s convocation lecture in Ilishan-Remo, Ogun State, urged Nigerians to be more discerning because the governors had no reason not to develop their states, given the huge amounts they regularly got from Federation Account. According to her, it is high time Nigerians held their governors accountable over the money collected on their behalf to accelerate development of their states.
Posted on: Tue, 03 Jun 2014 21:05:54 +0000