If Buhari has evidence that Jonathan stole N150B, he should jail him

Speaking on Monday, March 19, 2018, during the 7th presidential quarterly business forum which held at the banquet hall in the Villa, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo accused the Jonathan administration of withdrawing N150billion from the federation account just days before the 2015 election.

In Osinbajo’s words; "In one single transaction, a few weeks to the 2015 elections, sums of N100billion and $295million were just frittered away by a few.

"Nobody should talk about the economy when you have this kind of huge leakages and huge corruption. Corruption that completely makes nonsense of even what you are allocating to capital projects.

"We saw from the presentation of the minister of finance that N14 billion was spent on agriculture in 2014, transportation N15 billion, so the total spent on infrastructure in those three years were N153 billion and in two weeks before the elections, N150 billion was essentially shared.

"So, if your total infrastructure spending is N150 billion and you can share N153 billion, that is completely incredible. That sort of thing doesn’t happen anywhere else in the world. And when we are talking about the economy, we must simply understand that that is the problem."

Jonathan responds

It took a couple of hours for Jonathan to respond through his aideReno Omokri.

Jonathan called Osinbajo a serial liar who has sold his lips to the devil.

“Nigerians may recall that lying is the most consistent achievement of Prof Osinbajo’s almost three years as vice president.

“On this most recent allegation, let me state categorically that Jonathan did not share N150billion two weeks to the 2015 election. If Osinbajo has proof that 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.

“The vice president has again surrendered his lips to Satan to be use to spread slander and lies", the former president said.

Sick and tired

Like me, I’m sure you must now be sick and tired of listening to tales of how Jonathan and his men stole Nigeria dry from 2010 to 2015.

The Buhari administration seizes every opportunity to regal us with how much Jonathan stole and why that theft is why we plunged into a recession and why we can’t fix our deplorable road surfaces.

I have to go with Jonathan here who is asking for proof from Osinbajo in this latest accusation game. And if there’s sufficient evidence that N150 billion left the treasury two weeks before the presidential election and this evidence is before Buhari and Osinbajo, why is Jonathan still walking the country a free man?

There’s got to be details of these humongous withdrawals before the presidency. So, why hasn’t the EFCC been sent after Jonathan to drag him before a Judge?

Why is Jonathan still flying the world to deliver speeches when he should be answering for the grandiose theft that happened right under his nose as president?

There is no denying the grand corruption that occurred during the Jonathan administration. But now more than ever, we need proof. Just proof.

This isn't a game. We are talking billions of naira developing wings. Heads should be rolling. This is serious business.

Taxpayers

N150billion is no chicken change. As taxpayers, we really deserve to know how Jonathan stole all of this money and where the money went. We deserve details of how Jonathan and his men frittered every kobo.

I think we’ve spent far too much time--time that should have been used for governance--discussing Jonathan’s alleged corruption and how he took the cookie jar with him to Otuoke. Now is the time to prove it or forever remain silent.