I Stand By My Words On FG Spending N250bn NLNG Dividends Without Due Process – Makinde

Governor of Oyo State and Presidential candidate of the Allied People’s Movement (APM), Engr. Seyi Makinde, has maintained that the N250 billion dividends remitted by the Nigeria Liquifed Natural Gas (NLNG) into the federation account have been surreptitiously spent by only the central government without recourse to the due process.

Although the federal government had since dismissed the allegation, Makinde argued that the federal government was shading Nigerians off the knowledge of the cash.

“I stand by my words,” he stressed, pointing out that the federal government has breached the fiscal transparency by spending such cash alone without sharing it with other tiers of government.

“Any cash that passes through the federation account is always shared across all component units,” he explained and urged Nigerians to hold the federal government to account.

The Oyo governor, who spoke on the platform of Makinde/Daura 2027 project during the South/South Town Hall meeting at Ibom Hall, Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capital, on Tuesday, said it was to reset Nigeria along the path of economic prosperity from 2027, and urged supporters to retrieve the country from the one party State.

He recalled that most of the South – South States including Delta, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Edo, Rivers and Cross River States’ were under opposition, but regretted that those states were seized by the federal might.

Makinde, therefore, enjoined the people to retrieve their mandate as the 2027 polls would present alternative choice with the APM, which he assured, has the know-how to rejig the country with education, social security, skills, and other interventions that would reawaken the consciousness of Nigerians towards nationalism.

He dismissed the tax laws recently passed by the National Assembly as anti – people, especially the middle class, lamenting that such regime was akin to taxing poverty.

“You can’t passed tax laws that are not consistent with productivity,” he warned, assuring that under his watch assuming he wins the Presidency in the next political dispensation, he would encourage entrepreneurhiip, and completely douse the prevailing tension in Niger Delta, by quelling militancy across the region.

Having traversed the Niger Delta as an oil worker, Makinde, said he was well versed with the challenges confronting the region, wondering why the zone so rich with the oil wealth should wallow in poverty.

He, therefore, praised Governor Umo Eno , for playing what he described as “politics without bitterness” for granting him venue to host the meeting.