There Was No Missing $49.8bn Under My Watch – Jonathan

Former President Goodluck Jonathan has said there was no time $49.8bn was lost under his administration as stated by the 16th Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, in his new book.

Jonathan spoke on Thursday in Abuja at the launch of the book titled: ‘And He Is In Public Policy And Agent Interests: Perspectives From The Emerging World’.

The book was edited by former Minister of Finance, Shamsuddeen Usman and was presented to The public on Thursday in Abuja.

According to the former President, the country cannot lose such an amount and still be able to pay salaries.

Jonathan stated, “I need to say why I did not quite agree with him. All that he wrote was on some of the issues, especially the one that is related to me.

“He said he was sacked because he blew the whistle that the federal government lost $49.8 billion. It’s not quite correct. It was not that he was sacked. He was suspended,” he clarified.

The former president explained that the Financial Reporting Council of CBN couldn’t investigate the allegations due to limited time.

“Before we could finish, his tenure was already over. Probably we would have called him back,” he said.

“Till today, I’m not convinced that the federal government lost $49.8 billion,” Jonathan insisted.

He further clarified that, “After they came up with more figures; first $49.8 billion, later 20 billion, later 12 billion. So, I don’t even know the correct one,” he said.

He, however, said after forensic audits, nobody was able to say $50 billion was missing, adding, “The report they came up with was that there is $1.48 billion dollars that they couldn’t really give a proper account and that NNPC should pay that money to the federation account.”

There Was No Missing $49.8bn Under My Watch – Jonathan is first published on The Whistler Newspaper