Former President Goodluck Jonathan has described as untrue remarks by the Governor of Kaduna State that the last administration only made the funds available to states run by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, that were in good terms with the President.

El-Rufai had, on Thursday at the National Executive Council, NEC, meeting, said: “What President Goodluck Jonathan did was to take N2 billion each from the Ecological Fund and give to some PDP states.

“Any PDP state that was not his friend, like Kano and Kwara, didn’t get.”

But in a statement issued by Jonathan’s media aide, Ikechukwu Eze, on Friday, the ex-President said Nigerians should disregard El-Rufai’s remarks as they were totally untrue.

He pointed out that it was only the states that met the criteria for accessing the fund that received it, adding that there were States governed by his staunch supporters such as Akwa Ibom and Ekiti who did not receive the fund.

He also noted that states ruled by the Labour Party and the All Progressive Grand Alliance also received the fund.

“It is so easy to expose Mallam Nasir el-Rufai … as Akwa-Ibom, a PDP state governed by the then Chairman of the PDP Governors Forum and a close confidante of the then President, Senator Godswill Akpabio, did not get the monies alluded to by Mallam el-Rufai from the Ecological Fund, as did multiple other PDP states, including Ekiti state, a state governed by a thoroughbred patriot and Jonathan supporter, Ayo Fayose,” Jonathan’s aide stated.

“Also, it is false that non-PDP states did not get monies from the fund… States under non-PDP parties like APGA and Labour party also benefitted.

“The fact remains that the Ecological Fund is a specialised fund with certain constitutional requirements which must be met before a state can access the funds.

“Every state benefited from the fund under President Jonathan who bent over backwards to accommodate states that had difficulty meeting the criteria for accessing the fund.”

Ex-Pesident Jonatha also accused El-Rufai’s of intentionally remaining silent on the over N10 billion specially deployed to fund the Great Green Wall project in some northern states, which was intended to check desert encroachment in the Sahel.

“The states included Zamfara, Jigawa, Kebbi, Sokoto, Katsina, Adamawa, Yobe, Borno and Kano, which belong to el-Rufai’s class of ‘non-friendly’ states that he claimed never benefited from any discretionary fund,” the statement added.