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| President Jonathan |
The Spokesman of President Goodluck Jonathan is furious about his being listed in the latest Africa Rich List as the sixth richest African leader.
The latest ranking, not by Forbes as wrongly posted earlier, but by a website, RichestLifestyle.com, estimated his networth at $100 million, triggering a mixed reaction from Nigerians, with some stating the ranking understated the wealth of the Nigerian leader.
•Jonathan: rejects 6th richest African leader tag
It seems the presidency did not find the references and debate funny.
“The Presidency condemns the totally unwarranted inclusion of President Jonathan in the publication titled “Africa’s Richest Presidents 2014” as another attempt to unjustifiably portray the President as a corrupt leader and incite public disaffection against him”, said the statement by Reuben Abati..
“We categorically assert that there is no factual basis for ranking President Jonathan as the sixth richest African Head of State with a net worth of about $100 Million U.S. Dollars.
“As is well known, President Jonathan has never been a businessman or entrepreneur, but a life-long public servant. The President has held public office since 1999 and has regularly declared his assets as required by Nigerian laws. He has had no personal income since 1999 other than his official remuneration as deputy governor, governor, vice president, acting president and president which are matters of public record.
“There has been no significant variation in the totality of his personal assets as contained in his last declaration to the Nigerian Code of Conduct Bureau in 2011 which, as can be verified, was a very, very far cry from the $100 million figure now being bandied about by Richest Lifestyle.com and other irresponsible, copy-cat publications.
“The clear and unacceptable imputation of the claim that President Jonathan is now worth about $100 Million is that the President has corruptly enriched himself while in office which is certainly not the case.
“We therefore demand a retraction and an unreserved apology from Richest Lifestyle.com and all those who have reproduced the offensive article.
“Otherwise, they should be prepared to substantiate their libellous claims against the President in courts of law within and outside Nigeria.
Incidentally, the report, http://www.richestlifestyle.com/richest-african-presidents/, was first posted on 6 September, but was reproduced by AIT website to a wider Nigerian audience, on 6 October.
Richestlifestyle.com is based in New York and it does not parade any name of the blogger,bloggers on the site.
Source: PM News
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