…Declines to comment on increment in budget by NASS
…As Fayemi keeps mum on resignation
The Federal Government Wednesday said that Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State would have been a guest to the Nigerian Police to give details of his allegation that the presidency planned to assassinate him over his opposition to President Muhammadu Buhari if not the constitutional immunity he is currently enjoying.
The Governor of Rivers state, Wike The Federal Government also said that it was not going to comment on the jacking up of the 2018 budget by the National Assembly until the budget is transmitted to the President for assent.
The Rivers State governor who is seen as a vocal opposition voice to the All Progressives Congress, APC-led government had recently during a thanksgiving to mark the third year anniversary of his administration at the Living Faith Church in Port Harcourt raised the alarm of assassination plot on him by the government.
According to him: “Intelligence report available to us as at this morning indicate that they are plotting to assassinate me in a crowd and claim it was accidental discharge.
“The level of conspiracy against Rivers State is unfortunate. Instead of focusing on governance, they focus on how to assassinate me or frame me up.”
But the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed while fielding questions from the State House correspondents after the weekly Federal Executive Council, FEC, meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari at the Council Chamber, Presidential Villa, Abuja, said that the governor actually ought to be picked up by the police if he were an ordinary citizen. Mohammed recalled that when he made a similar allegation some years ago, he was invited by the police for clarifications.
He said, “As to the question about the allegation by the governor of Rivers that he has information that he will be assassinated by the federal government in a crowd.
“I think one of the beauties of being a governor is that you enjoy immunity from prosecution and arrest. Because, I remember a couple of years ago when I made similar allegations, I was invited to Force Headquarters.”
Meanwhile, the Minister of Mines and Steel, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, who last week gave the indication that he would be resigning his post in the federal cabinet despite his emergence as Ekiti State gubernatorial candidate of the All Progressives Congress did not say anything about it Wednesday.
There was the expectation that he was going to turn in his resignation letter at the FEC, although he had last week explained that he was still covered by the 1999 Constitution (as amended) which stipulates that the political office holder should resign 30 days before the election and his governorship election is taking place on July 14.
Reacting to the question on why Dr. Fayemi did not tender his resignation letter at the FEC as expected, the Minister of Information said: “I read it just like you that he will resign this week. If he did say so, today is just Wednesday. I think we still have the rest of the week to see if he will resign. But I think really he is the best person that can speak on it.”
Also briefing journalists, the Minister of Budget and Economic Planning Senator Udoma Udo Udoma said that the government was excited with the performance of the economy in first quarter as published by the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS.
He said, “I presented the latest NBS GDP result which was released on Monday. It showed a GDP growth rate of 1.95 percent with both the oil as well as the non oil sectors continuing to grow. Council was most encouraged by this result particularly because the first quarter is usually the weskest quarter.
“With this first quarter of 1.95 percent we are on track to achieve the 3.5 percent GDP growth rate which is our target for this year particularly we believe that once the infrastructure spending in the 2018 starts to kick in, the whole economy will receive a further boost as more jobs will be created, consumer spending will increase thereby improving the performance of the servicing sector.
“And apart from the GDP numbers, Council is also very happy to see the positive trend in all other major economic indices including inflation which has been trending down and capital importation which has been going up as well as our Foreign Currency Reserve which has been going up.
“You will recall that our FOREX 2016 were about $23 billion now $47 billion. On the budget, he said, “We are yet to receive the budget so it would be impossible for anybody to have made a statement from the executive about the budget until we actually receive the budget and go through the budget. Nobody in the executive will be in the position until we have examined the budget we can’t make any statement about it.”
The Minister of Interior, Abdulraman Danbazzau said, “I presented a memo on behalf of Nigeria Immigration Service which was approved. The memo has to do with consultancy service for the construction of our technology building. That technology building is meant to accommodate our data communication command of control center which will be manned and managed by the Nigeria Immigration officers.
“We realized when we came in that we have a couple of data basics which were being handled by service providers that were engaged in a kind of PPP arrangements and the data involve that of passport issuance, visa issuance and green paper for resident permit.
“So we are bringing all that together in the interest of national security under the control of Nigeria Immigration Service contrary to what we have been obtaining whereby service providers have been handling the data bases contrary to the interest of national security.
“The total worth of the consultancy service is N583 million at five percent VAT at a completion time of 23 months.” (Vanguard)
