The spokesperson of the South East All Progressives
Congress, Mr. Osita Okechukwu has called for the
prosecution of the former Co-ordinating Minister and
Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
According to Okechukwu, Okonjo-Iweala failed
woefully to save Nigeria’s humongous crude oil
windfall under her watch.
The former minister was said to have stated that in
her first appointment as Minister of Finance they
saved $22 billion because of the political will of the
President then (Chief Olusegun Obasanjo), but in her
second appointment it was not because of lack of
political will.
Her words: “We saved $22 billion because the
political will to do it was there. This time round, and
this is the key now, you need not only to have the
instrument, but you also need the political will. In
my second time as Finance Minister, from 2011 to
2015, we had the instrument, we had the means, we
had done it before, but zero political will”.
Okechukwu, in reacting to her position, stated that
she ought to have reigned and since she did not do
that she should be prosecuted for watching the
economy being drained.
He said, in reacting to Okonko-Iweala’s defence: “It
is not just a statement, it is self confession of Dr
(Mrs) Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, immediate past Minister
of Finance, to the effect that she failed woefully to
save Nigeria’s humongous crude oil windfall under
her watch, in an economy which ex-president, Dr
Goodluck Jonathan, innocently handed over to her to
coordinate. “Dr (Mrs) Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala should be
prosecuted for her conspiracy in squandering the
humongous crude oil windfall which accrued under
her watch as Minister of Finance and the
Coordinator of the economy.”
