Abuja, Nigeria (PANA) – Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan has said there is no basis to rank him as the sixth richest African President and demanded an immediate retraction of the story that contained the ranking.
The website ‘RichestLifestyle.com’ had published a report that listed the leader of Africa’s most populous nation as the sixth richest African President, with a net worth of US$100 million.
President Jonathan was listed behind top-ranked Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos of Angola (US$20b); King Mohammed VI of Morocco (US$2.5b),Theodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea (US$600 million), Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya (US$500m) and Paul Biya of Cameroon (US$200m).
”The Presidency condemns the totally unwarranted inclusion of President Jonathan in the publication…as another attempt to unjustifiably portray the President as a corrupt leader and incite public disaffection against him,” Nigerian presidential spokesman Reuben Abati said in a statement.
”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,” he said.
The statement said 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 statement said, while demanding a retraction and an unreserved apology from the website and all those who have reproduced the article.
”Otherwise, they should be prepared to substantiate their libelous claims against the President in courts of law within and outside Nigeria,” it added.
The threat may have worked. As of Thursday morning, the name of President Jonathan had been removed from the list.
Under item number 6 on the list, the website wrote: ”Net worth removed”.
