Governors storm Abuja, demand release of ecological fund

State governors yesterday met with finance minister Mrs Kemi Adeosun and the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Mr Godwin Emefiele over issues related to the release of the ecological fund, stabilisation and the excess crude account.

The meeting which held behind closed doors had in attendance governors Ifeanyi Okowa (Delta), Rochas Okorocha (Imo), Abdul'aziz Abubakar Yari (Zamfara), Aminu Waziri Tambuwal (Sokoto), Olushegun Mimiko (Ondo) and Nasir el-Rufai (Kaduna).

Speaking after the meeting, Governor Yari said the meeting was a follow up of the resolutions reached two days ago at their meeting.

He said 'We are concerned seriously about the issue of environment. From the North there is desertification, in South-south you have the gas flaring, from South east you have issue of erosion.

'We have a lot of funds in ecological, we have a lot of funds in stabilization purse and those funds are not being discussed in NEC. What we discussed in NEC is briefing about issue of ECA, progress of federation account and other finances but these funds are not being discussed at the level of NEC.

'Therefore, we would like to have a report every month because those funds are federation funds and we are having so many troubles and there is another fund from foreign donors in support of issue of desertification and issue of environment.

'We are discussing with ministry of finance, we are discussing with CBN governor how states will get easy access to these funds for the betterment of our society', Yari said.

Asked why governors decided to storm the finance ministry having accessed two tranches of bailouts recently, the governor said 'we never asked for anything called bailout… it is media creation.  I wonder how the media fabricated all those stories.  When it comes to story about states, media turn the story upside down'.