Updated: Governors allege impunity at CBN, NNPC, NIMASA, others

*Say Buhari’s ego not enough to suspend Twitter

*Insist APC will go with President in 2023

Tunde Opalana, Abuja and ISAAC JOB, UYO

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Governors’ Forum rose from a meeting in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, on Monday, urging the Federal Government to rein in its agencies which have been allegedly operating without recourse to the constitution setting them it up and other extant laws regulating their operations.

Most of the government-owned enterprises such as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the Nigeria Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) were accused of not remitting funds optimally into the Federation Account, running into several billions of naira in accruable revenue.

Others were accused of not submitting their audited account records to regulatory bodies such as the office of the Auditor General of the Federation.

The PDP governors also accused President Muhammadu Buhari of flexing personal ego in the suspension of operations of micro-blogging organisation, Twitter from Nigeria.

Reading a communique at the end of the one day meeting, the forum’s chairman and governor of Sokoto State, Rt. Hon. Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, said the meeting dwelt extensively on the deteriorating economic and security situation in the country, and worsening social and political tensions.

Having examined the operations of NNPC, the forum expressed alarm at the opaque manner it carries out its operations.

The Forum decried, “the recent NNPC’s decision not to make its statutory contributions to the Federation Account, thereby starving the states and local governments and indeed Nigerians of funds needed for employment, development and general wellbeing.

“The meeting emphasized that under the Constitution, the NNPC is duty-bound to make proceeds of sale or business of Petroleum available to the Federation Account which belongs to the three tiers of government, excluding reasonable and verified and verifiable cost of operations.

“The Federal government through NNPC is a manager of our oil wealth merely as a trustee for all Nigerians. The meeting frowned at a situation where the NNPC decides in a totally discretionary and often whimsical manner, how much to spend, how to spend it and how much to remit to the Federation Account, contrary to the letters and even the spirit of the 1999 Constitution.”

The governors also expressed deep concerns on the operational system and methods of the CBN.

It regretted that the CBN is operating as an independent government within a government, which is a pervasion of its autonomy.

“A situation where CBN creates money, decides how much of it to spend, on what to spend it on without any form of controls or supervision is patently subversive of our constitutional order.

It has become not just a Leviathan, but also a father Christmas of sorts, dabbling into every sphere and scope of governmental activity, not just as a lender of last resort, but as a full executing agency of government.

“The meeting observed that the CBN has become such an octopus that it threatens State governments publicly, without decorum, about sanctions on any attempt to question its modis operandi !.

The CBN should take immediate steps to halt the depreciation of the naira.”

The meeting called on other agencies of government such as Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), NIMASA, Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC), Federal Inland Revenue Services, Customs and Excise and similar organisations that are statutorily required to make contributions into the Federation Account, to do more.

“The federating states should, going forward now have a say in the determination of operating costs to ensure transparency and accountability,” demanded the PDP governors.

The Forum reiterated its call, which it said seem to have fallen on deaf ears, for the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission to urgently send the revised Revenue Allocation Formular to Mr President for onward transmission to the National Assembly for enactment, such that more resources are made available to States and Local Governments where ordinary Nigerians reside.

It called on the “Chairman and Members of the Commission to resign or be relieved of their duties, if they cannot discharge this sacred constitutional duty entrusted by the Nigerian people to it.

The present constitutional amendment process should make the Commission more independent and accountable to all stakeholders.”

The meeting examined the suspension of Twitter from operating in Nigeria, and condemned the personalised reasons given for the action.

The governor said “the mere ego of Mr President is not enough for such a drastic action that deprives millions of Nigerians from such an affordable means of expression and communication.

We hope that this is not a harbinger or early warning signs of descent into dictatorship.”

The meeting noted that social media regulation can only be done within the existing laws on the subject and should not be used as an attempt to punish or gag Nigerians from enjoying constitutionally guaranteed rights.

Nigerian youths do not have adequate access to employment and a lot of Nigerians rely on Twitter for their livelihood, businesses and self-employment.

“This will further worsen Nigeria’s 33% unemployment rate which is the highest in the world, improve Nigeria’s ranking as the country with second highest poverty rate in the entire world, all of which happened under APC’s unfortunate stewardship.

“The meeting consequently requested Mr President to review the suspension of Twitter operations in Nigeria in the national interest,” said the governor’s.

The meeting further called on the APC led Federal Government to think outside the box and find solutions to the challenges facing electricity supply in Nigeria as the current system is certainly not delivering power needed for Nigeria’s rapid industrialisation.

On the recurring question of insecurity of lives and property in Nigeria, the PDP Governors reiterated the need to decentralize the operations of the security apparatus of state even within the existing legal framework, to ensure the input of local operators in State and Local Governments in policing and security.

In attendance at the Uyo meeting were Governors Tambuwal, Okezie Ikpeazu (Abia), Udom Emmanuel (Akwa Ibom), Douye Diri (Bayelsa), Samuel Ortom (Benue), Ifeanyi Okowa (Delta), Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi (Enugu) and Nyesom Wike (Rivers), Oluseyi Makinde (Oyo), Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri (Adamawa), Godwin Obaseki (Edo), State, Bala Mohammed (Bauchi), Darius Ishaku (Taraba) and Deputy Governor Mahdi Mohd (Zamfara).

Meanwhile, the party in a statement on Monday said due to the misrule of the All Progressives Congress (APC) administration, the ruling party will go with President Muhammadu Buhari at the expiration of his tenure in 2023.

It said the APC will have no place in the post-Buhari Nigeria, given the resolution by Nigerians to return the nation to the path of peace, unity and economic prosperity, which can never be attained if APC is allowed to govern beyond 2023.

In the statement signed by National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, the PDP noted that President Buhari’s efforts to launder the APC to remain in power after his tenure amounts to an effort in futility as “Nigerians are no longer ready to put up with the wickedness of the APC, in its atrocious activities, treasury looting and “Janjaweed” ideology of violence, with which they have held the nation captive in the last six years”.

The PDP claimed it is informed of “how desperate APC leaders, who have been indicted for treasury looting and aiding of terrorism in our country, are blackmailing President Buhari to use his media interviews to canvass the perpetuation of APC in power so as to shield them from prosecution at the inevitable end of his tenure in 2023.

“The PDP is already aware of how such individuals have been trying to force Mr. President to commence an early campaign for the APC.

“While not excusing the personal failures of Mr. President as well as the incompetence that embodies the Buhari Presidency, it is incontrovertible that the APC, as a decadent political party, founded on vices of vindictiveness, divisiveness, falsehood, fake promises, electoral manipulations, support for violence, stealing, sectional marginalization and hatred, cannot produce the desired leadership for our nation after President Buhari.

“That is why some individuals, in the APC, who by their backgrounds as religious leaders, community leaders, legal luminaries, rights advocates and moralists who should be speaking out in the face of misrule, have rather have found themselves entangled in APC Bermuda Triangle of violence and corruption, where they have ignobly become apostles of falsehood, corruption, injustice as well as backers of acts of terrorism in our country.”

The party urged Buhari to know that Nigerians are not ready to be beguiled again to further entrust the destiny of the nation in the hands of the APC, which has in the last six years, superintended over the looting of over N25.1 trillion from various ministries, agencies and department of government; leading to the ruining of a once robust economy.

“Nigerians are invited to note how the President Buhari-led APC administration has failed to prosecute APC leaders and their agents indicted in the reported disappearance of N10.1 trillion from the Treasury Single Account (TSA) in March this year, the N9.6 trillion NNPC scam, the reported N1.1 trillion crude oil fraud, alleged N1.4 trillion fuel subsidy scam, the N500 billion Social Intervention fraud exposed by the First Lady, Aisha Buhari, as well as massive looting in FIRS, NEMA, EFCC, NDDC, NPA, NIMASA, NHIS and other agencies of government.

“This is in addition to reports of how APC, as a party, is behind the importation of terrorist elements and emboldening of terrorist activities, arbitrary arrests and sudden disappearances of dissenting voices, sectional marginalization, political killings, escalated abuse of human rights including the clampdown on our youths during the EndSARS protest as well as the stifling of social media in our country.

“That is why the APC has never raised a strong voice against acts of terrorism, killings, electoral violence and treasury looting.

“Mr. President should therefore stop wasting his time trying to launder the APC. He should know that Nigerians have moved beyond APC’s gimmicks and that is why they are rallying on the platform of the PDP to rescue our nation from misrule,” the statement read in part.