FAAC: ‘FG Plans To Strangulate Some States’

An economic expert and Senior Lecturer in the Rivers State University, Prof. Austine Ayodele Momodu says the current discrepancies over the monthly Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) payments to the various states were a ploy by the Federal Government to strangulate some states.
Momodu in an exclusive chat with The Tide, yesterday, in his office slammed the Federal Government for hiding under the guise of reconcilable accounts from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) in order not to release funds to states.
“For me there is more to this FAAC delay. I believe they want to use it to weep up sentiments, and soon salary payments will be used as a campaign issue”, Momodu said.
The university don wondered why at this point, the Federal Government was putting up excuse in reconciling crude oil sales account from the NNPC in order not to release monthly allocation.
In his words, “What is difficult to reconcile an account is the NNPC bigger than the Federal Government, or that the account is dormant? That is why I said there is more to it”.
Responding to recent statistics, putting Nigeria as the World Poverty Capital ahead of India, the finance expert said “Nigeria has never been better than India. But before now we were doing better in the avenge income however when it comes to quality of life India is doing better than Nigeria”.
Momodu observed that in the past three years Nigeria economy further declined”, there is no sector that is doing well, and we are still importing more of our food, but India is self sufficient in food”.
He went on to explain that, “once your total output drops and population is growing, there is a problem. And that is what we are experiencing right now in Nigeria”.