Governors Deny Receiving ₦243.8b Paris Club Refund

The 36 state governors in Nigeria under the aegis of the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) have jointly denied receiving the sum of ₦243.8 billion Paris Club refund in the month of August.

The governors stated that the allegation of receiving such funds was done by a faceless individual.

According to a statement released on Friday through the NGF head of media and public affairs, Abdulrazaque Bello-Barkindo titled, “Re: Alleged Disbursement of N243.8bn to States “ warned those behind the rumours not to set Nigeria on fire.

Barkindo said, “The NGF wishes to state categorically that nothing can be farther from the truth as this disbursement did not happen and could not have happened as there are no further possibilities, that they can happen now, or in the future.”

“The lie is further accentuated by the fact that the announcer has remained anonymous and to all intents and purposes, faceless.

“If it were true and the announcer sure of his facts, he would have owned the announcement in case anyone wanted to verify the information. But alas! “The faceless announcer of the fake disbursement, is apparently, completely oblivious of, or even clueless, about how the Paris Club refunds came about.

“This ignorance is either a sincere lack of knowledge of the process or a deliberate effort to cause confusion in the land,” the statement reads.

Bello-Barkindo further explained that the fund been referenced is not something the federal government can just dip its hands into and share with the states.

He, therefore, charged all stakeholders to work for the progress of the country and desist from selfish ambitions capable of tearing the country apart.

“There are myriads of ways to encourage the population to call their leaders to account but stoking the embers of discord by dishing out false information is doing the states, the governors and the citizens, as a whole, a disservice or even a calamity that no responsible citizen invites on his people,”.