Former President Goodluck Jonathan has dismissed the insinuations being created in the media that his administration would be probed by the committee set up by the House of Representatives to look into how the budget allocated to the State House Medical Centre since 2015 was spent.
He said he had nothing to do with the 2015 budget before he handed over power to President Muhammadu Buhari on May 29, 2015.
He made the clarification in a statement by his media aide, Mr Ikechukwu Eze, in Abuja, on Saturday.
He explained that there was no way his administration would be included in the expected probe of allocations to the clinic.
“The House of representatives resolved Thursday 12 October, 2015, to probe 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,” he stated.
Eze said “going by the insinuations on issues that bordered on development in country, it would appear as if Jonathan had been in office since independence and probably still ruling.
“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.
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