Former President Goodluck Jonathan has faulted the impression being created in a section of the media that his administration will be probed by an ad-hoc committee set up by the House of Representatives.
The committee’s mandate is to look into how the budget allocated to the State House Medical Centre since 2015 was spent.
Some media reports suggested that Jonathan’s administration will be included in the probe since he was in the saddle till May 29.
But Jonathan said he had nothing to do with the 2015 budget before he handed over power to President Muhammadu Buhari on May 29 of the same year.
He said there was no way his administration would therefore be included in the expected probe of allocations to the clinic.
Jonathan stated this in a statement signed by his Media Aide, Mr. Ikechukwu Eze, in Abuja on Saturday.
The statement read, “The House of Representatives resolved on October 12, 2015, to probe the 2015-2017 allocations to Aso Rock Clinic and some media reports are needlessly dragging the name of former President Goodluck Jonathan into it.
“We had thought that the media should be the first to remind Nigerians that since Jonathan left office on May 29, 2015, he had absolutely nothing to do with the implementation of the budget for that year.
“For emphasis, the 2015 Appropriation Bill which was passed by the parliament in April was signed into law in May, 2015.
“And since the procurement process, based on the new procurement law, takes at least three months to complete, there was no way Jonathan would have had anything to do with the budget implementation for 2015, before vacating Aso Rock Villa on May 29, 2015.”
Eze said going by the way some people make insinuations on issues that border on the development in country, it would appear as if Jonathan had been in office since Independence in 1960, and probably still in charge.
“We expect media houses to always do proper investigations to avoid the convenient choice of always using Jonathan as the scapegoat for the misdeeds of others,” he added.
