TheCable

Ayodele Fayose, the Ekiti state governor, says the removal of Yahaya Gusau, director-general of budget, over the controversy surrounding the 2016 budget is not enough.

In a statement issued by Lere Olayinka, his special assistant on public communications and new media, Fayose said President Muhammadu Buhari ought to adopt a holistic approach than “just making one person scapegoat”.

Insisting the president withdraws the budget, he said the sack would not erase the “national embarrassment generated by the errors of the budget”.

He added that the president needed to be told that he is not God who cannot make mistakes; therefore, the budget scam must be seen as part of the mistakes that Buhari himself is capable of making.

“Padding of the budget with strange figures, now being denied by ministers was a clear intention to steal in advance,” the statement read.

“Though it is good that the president listened to my call for the punishment of those responsible for the national embarrassment, mere sacking of officers at the budget office will not remove the stain splashed on Nigeria by the shameful budget.

“Sacking one or two persons on this budget scam is just like using some people as cover-up for the national embarrassment caused by the president himself. Even the president himself signed a letter wrongly dated as October 22, 2016 and one is tempted to ask who the president will sack for these avoidable errors.

“Or was it the sacked DG of Budget Office the one who unilaterally put all those bogus figures like N3.8 billion for Aso Villa Clinic, N780 million for website in one single ministry, and others in the budget?

“In my own opinion, it is necessary that those handling the president should bring it to his consciousness that he is not God that cannot make mistakes and this budget scam must be seen as part of the mistakes that President Buhari is capable of making.

“By doing this, the president will be provided with another opportunity to re-present the budget because I wonder how Nigeria can operate on a budget already disowned by notable ministers, including the government’s spokesperson.

“Or what remedy can anyone do to a budget in which 2015 budgetary allocations of an agency was reproduced verbatim? Even N180 million was discovered to have been allocated to NIMET twice.”