Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, denies saying the Federal government has spent N1bn on Alex Ekwueme's burial

Minister of Labour and Employment, Sen. Chris Ngige has denied media reports quoting him as saying that the federal government has spent about N1 billion in the burial plans of former Vice President, Alex Ekwueme. 

The Minister said he never attached any figure to the plans being made by the government to ensure that the former Vice President gets what he termed “a deserving national tribute to one of Nigeria’s foremost Statesman.”

In a statement signed by the Special Assistant on Media to the Minister, Nwachukwu Obidiwe, the Minister said he only gave a summary of the number of projects the  Federal Government has undertaken to ensure that the former Vice President is given a decent burial. The statement in part reads

Perhaps the Hon. Minister has prempted the rhetorics of cynics and detractors  who could have easily run to town to claim the Federal Government has abandoned Ekwueme in  death. For the avoidance of doubt, what he did as a member of the Burial Planning  Committee was to give the details of the road rehablitation projects from the Awka end of the State and from Abia and Imo State axis , all leading to Ekwueme’s home town of Oko, as well as the   medical services, the  Mausoleum and others.  But at no time did the Minister  attach a figure of One Billion Naira. An unedited video and audio tape of the interview as recorded by both broadcast and print reporters  is easily within reach. The Minister is an Igbo man and knows full well that just as  a count is not taken of the number of children a parent is blessed with in Igbo tradition, the same tradition holds the burial rites and attendant expenses even more sacred to warrant such display of figures.  However, it is important  to add that such pieces of  information in an administration such as ours  that is  anchored on openess, and bouyed by the Freedom of Information could be at the finger tips of any investigative reporting.”

The former Vice President who died in November 2017 would be buried on February 2nd.