Former President, Goodluck Jonathan, has refuted claims made by the 16th Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, in his recently launched book regarding a purported loss of $49.8 billion during his administration.
Speaking in Abuja at the book launch titled “Public Policy and Agent Interests: Perspectives from The Emerging World,” Jonathan emphasized that such a significant financial loss would have rendered the country incapable of meeting its salary obligations.
The former president’s comments came in response to assertions made by Sanusi, who argued in his book that the alleged financial mismanagement was detrimental to the nation’s economy.
The book was edited by former Minister of Finance, Shamsuddeen Usman.
He said, “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.”
Jonathan said 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.
“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.”