An
obviously rattled Nigerian presidency has cobbled together an informal
committee made up of top administration officials to provide a
blistering response to a former Vice President of the World Bank,
Obiageli Ezekwesili, who has accused President Goodluck Jonathan and his
predecessor of squandering over N10 trillion of Nigeria’s oil savings
left behind by former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
A
presidential source familiar with the matter said President Jonathan
administration was especially rattled by the former minister’s remark,
and that he immediately ordered his top aides to provide a comprehensive
response to the former minister’s claim, considered damaging enough to
incite Nigerians against the regime.
Our
source said Mr. Jonathan specifically instructed his Chief of Staff,
Mike Oghiadomhe, to coordinate the damage control needed to check the
fallout of Mrs. Ezekwesili’s remark.
It
was Mr. Oghiadomhe who then constituted a committee comprising Ngozi
Okonjo-Iweala, Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of
Finance; Labaran Maku, Minister of Information; Sylvester Monye, Special
Adviser to the President on Monitoring and Evaluation; Bright Okogu,
Director General,
Budget Office of the Federation and Nwanze Okidegbe,
Chief Economic Adviser to the President.
Also
drafted into the team were Olasupo Olusi, Technical Assistant to the
Minister of Finance and coordinator of the YouWin! Project; and Doyin
Okupe, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs.
Our
source said the team met and mapped out the framework for an aggressive
response to Mrs. Ezekwesili’s remark. For a start, Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala’s
office was mandated to provide detailed response to all the issues
raised by the former minister at the convocation lecture she gave at the
University of Nigeria.
Mrs
Okonjo-Iweala then instructed her aide, Mr. Olusi, to urgently study Mr.
Ezekwesili’s speech, and then provide an ideal response to her.
By
Saturday afternoon, the finance minister’s aide, Mr. Olusi, had
completed a draft which was then circulated to the rest of the team for
review.
A final copy of the
government’s response was sent to the information minister on Saturday
night ahead of the press conference he addressed on Sunday afternoon.
After
the press conference where he described Mrs Ezekwesili’s claims as
“fallacious”, and betraying a “surprisingly limited” understanding of
government finances, Mr. Maku also requested the Special Assistant to
the President on Social Media, Reno Omokri, to aggressively confront the
former minister on Twitter and Facebook, our source said.
Mr.
Omokri immediately picked up the gauntlet, using his Twitter handle to
tear at Mrs. Ezekwesili and describing her conduct as resembling that of
a wicked stepmother.
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