The Nigerian Economic Summit Group has explained how state governors spent the country’s $50bn Excess Crude Account in 2010, which would have served as a buffer for subsidies and other pressing financial concerns of the nation.
The Chief Executive Officer of NESG, Dr Tayo Aduloju, disclosed this during a courtesy visit to the headquarters of PUNCH Nigeria Limited on Wednesday.
He recalled that the global financial crisis of 2007 and 2008 had minimal effects on Nigerian firms because the country had a substantial fiscal buffer in the ECA, which greatly shielded it from external economic shocks.
However, in 2010, the state governors approached the Supreme Court to declare the ECA illegal, giving them the basis to share the funds domiciled in the account.
According to him, the Federal Government disbursed the $50bn fund to the 36 state governors between when late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua died and when former President Goodluck…