$1B insurgency fund, violation of Nigeria’s Constitution

The approval of the sum of $1bn from the Excess Crude Account (ECA) by the Nigerian Governors Forum has continued to stir up more controversy.

According to Prince Nosa Eweka of the Benin Royal Family, ”the Nigerian Governors Forum,a body that is not known by law or the constitution to purportedly execute the constitutional duty of the Federal Government amounts to violation of the constitution”.

In a statement made available to the Daily Times, Prince Eweka said “ The Presidency and a quorum of the Governors Forum cannot decide what to do with monies that belong to the Federal Government, all States and Local Government Councils, that’s a NO NO.

If individual States or Local Government Councils want to donate their monies to the Federal Government to fight insurgency they can but you cannot force every State or Local Government Council to do that”.

“It’s sad that most of our Governors, the Vice President and the President who all swore to uphold and defend the rule of law and our constitution don’t even know our laws, very sad”.

Prince Eweka also added that “The Buhari administration need to share what’s in the Excess Crude Account (ECA) amongst all tiers of Government and abolish it”.

The Excess Crude Account was established in 2004 by President Olusegun Obasanjo to save oil revenues above a base amount derived from a defined benchmark price.

Recall on November 7th, the Senate described the operation of the Excess Crude Account (ECA) as unconstitutional and in violation of section 162 of our constitution.

Section 162 of our constitution states “The Federation shall maintain a special account to be called the “Federation Account “ into which shall be paid all revenues collected by the Government of the Federation.

Any amount standing to the credit of the Federation account shall be distributed among the Federal and State Governments and the Local Government Councils in each State”.