President Muhammadu Buhari says
Goodluck Jonathan, his predecessor,
conceded the 2015 presidential election to
him only “reluctantly”.
He also reiterated his determination to trace and arrest all
the people in government who have been involved in crude
oil theft.
Speaking on Monday in Abuja during a television
programme, ‘Good Morning Nigeria’, the president revealed
that the theft continued up till July 10, and monies meant
for the country were diverted to foreign accounts.
Answering a question on his trip to the United States and
the willingness of the US to sell weapons to Nigeria, he
said: “Americans are willing to help us, they understand our
problems, they sympathize with us. This I think you ought
to know from the time the secretary of state came here
before the elections.
“He saw the former president, INEC; the opposition, too.
America’s stand is it will not accept anything done in
Nigeria outside the constitution of Nigeria and outside the
electoral act. Now, you know what was done to threaten the
last election, including threatening INEC by telling them that
their security cannot be guaranteed and they added six
weeks extension to the time of the election. Luckily APC
won the election and then, reluctantly, the opposition
conceded and the rest, as they say, is history.
“So really the Americans have shown concern, they spoke
to the former president, INEC, the opposition and
maintained the pressure throughout. The Americans are in
agreement with Europe and Nigeria then to be grateful to
America that Nigerian elections are conducted to the law.
“Because of the high technology in the US, the European
countries and China… It is not that we do not have trained
personnel, not that we don’t have basic infrastructure but
the problem is that in spite of the money allegedly spent on
the operations, the air force is virtually non-existent. The
aircraft are not serviceable, the helicopters are not
serviceable and they are few. There is the need for the air
force to conduct a connoisseur and support the ground
troops. The arrangement made by the former government
will soon expire. We have made this clear to America and
G-7 and we need their cooperation.
“This problem is not only in the north-east, we have a
problem in the Gulf of Guinea, which you know is between
Senegal and Angola and the incredible theft of the Nigerian
crude in an average of more than 250,000 barrels per day,
which is being illegally loaded from our terminals by
unpatriotic Nigerians that only consider their own selfish
interests to get money. We registered the support and
cooperation of the US and other countries who sympathies
with us to make sure the Gulf of Guinea is secured so as to
make it difficult for crude thieves to load at our terminals
and transport it to all over the world.”
Commenting on alleged shady dealings in the nation’s oil
and gas sector, he said the federal government was
working very assiduously to expose the persons behind the
illegal activity.
He promised that his administration would continue to
update members of the public on government’s
investigation into the matter, as the aim remains to identify
and prosecute all those found culpable.
“The multiparty democracy system for developing countries
has its advantages and relative disadvantages in the sense
that for us to get the help of the developed countries, we
have to get our fact: documents, complete and reliable
investigation, take them to court and get these people
prosecuted.
“Meanwhile, the theft continues. Up to the 10th of this
month, our crude is still being illegally lifted by people who
are in government. We are trying to get these documents ,
we are getting cooperation from the international
community. We are going very soon to make sure that
those who perpetrated this crime against Nigeria will be
faced with facts and be taken to our courts. We have got
the cooperation of some of the countries that are the
destinations of our crude and we are discussing with them.
“We have to maintain high confidentiality so that we don’t
risk some of the people in Nigeria that are helping us to
trace the destinations of this stolen crude and then the
accounts where the processed are being paid instead of the
Federal Government account. I don’t think the NNPC knows
how many accounts are there in which payments are made
on Nigerian crude. The monumental fraud has been going
on for a number of years, a lot of Nigerians cannot
comprehend it.
He explained that although the countries in question are
willing to let go of the looted fund, a lot of work still has to
be done here in Nigeria.
“They are willing but I also said it has to comply with their
own system, that we have to get the documents, especially
the shipping documents: how they load here in our
terminals, the destinations,” he said.
“Some of them even change the crude or the destinations
on the high sea and then change the account, instead of the
Federal Government account, they pay into individual
accounts. The cooperation we need is that once we get
those shipping documents and we are lucky to trace them
up to the countries where they sold the crude and which
account it goes, then we will submit the evidence in terms
of loading, the payment made and the account.
“Once we do these, they are very willing to make sure that
all those accounts are frozen and money repatriated to
Nigeria. It is not an easy process but I assure you that we
are working very hard. We cannot say we will wait until
when everything is completed before you know. Whatever
we are able to get in a couple of months, we will bring it out
for Nigerians to know.”
On the insurgency in the north-east, he said: “I have a
comprehensive report of what the Boko Haram members
were able to do when they occupied more than 10 local
governments in Borno State, seven local governments in
Yobe and Adamawa States. The destruction they made on
the infrastructure, especially schools, hostels, roads, blown
up bridges and blown up markets. We have made a list of
these and what it will cost to quickly rehabilitate them.
“Again, the Internally Displaced Persons, they are more than
1.5 million mostly from those three states of Borno, Yobe
and Adamawa. But they are in Kaduna, Abuja. What it takes
to rehabilitate in terms of repairing of towns that have been
raised down by Boko Haram like Bama, Baga and other
towns and then getting the infrastructure – schools,
hospitals, getting the teachers – is a very expensive and a
long list but is verifiable and quantifiable.
On the problem of fuel scarcity and reports of his intention
to break the NNPC into two, he said: “I read the story too
that I intend to break the NNPC. I think the best way to go
about it to first establish the fact of the magnitude of the
inexplicable way the NNPC conducted itself. When we do
that, we will be on higher moral ground to do whatever
recommendations made to us.
“The problem of fuel scarcity is one of the problems. We all
know we used to have four refineries refining daily on the
average of about 450,000 barrels per day. We had 25
depots all over the country from Maiduguri to Ilorin, from
Gusau to Yola, from Makurdi to Port Harcourt to Ibadan.
“All these infrastructure have virtually been vandalized and
Nigerians are forced to buy products from world markets as
if Nigeria hasn’t invested in the industry. This is sheer
corruption and inefficiency. This situation cannot be undone
overnight. Firstly, we have to organize with our partners
who had been developing the petroleum sector. Nigeria was
constituency losing on a daily basis millions of dollars. I
think those who have been operating in the industry have
been displaying lack of conscience and patriotism. Only God
knows the amount of damage done to Nigeria.”
On his delay in appointing his ministers, Buhari said: “From
what I have seen so far, we need very patriotic Nigerians,
Nigerians that can work very hard with knowledgable
experience, committed Nigerians to be in charge of
ministries. A lot of institutions in Nigeria are compromised,
everybody for himself and God for all of us. It is most
unfortunate.
“We have people, educated and experienced people, but
everybody seems to be working for himself on how much
they could get away with as soon as possible. We have to
look for technocrats and politicians. We have to look out for
decent people in this class to give them the responsibility of
being in charge of ministries and important parastatals.
“We will try as mush as possible to avoid appointing
hostages; by this, I mean people who have been in the
system but compromised their personal and professional
integrity. It is taking so much time because a number of
knowledgable people have been compromised. They have
been compromised by people who will like to depend on
them to damage our economy and security, a lot of them
have been compromised.
“The worst thing that I think can happen is to get a
compromised person to be in charge of institutions. There
is no way he could be efficient or patriotic. Somebody
behind the scene will be tele-guiding him at the expense of
the nation. This is what we are trying to avoid and I assure
you that so much damage has been done to Nigeria. We
cannot rush to give this responsibility to people that have
unfortunately been compromised, because there is no way
you can effectively supervise let’s say 20 ministries; you
have to give it to people you trust and you allow them to
perform according to the constitution of the country. If you
appoint compromised people, then we will be back to
square one and Nigeria will be the loser.”
In typical fashion, he refused to make far-reaching
comments on the national assembly crisis, only urging his
party not to give in to the distraction of personal ambition at
the expense of fulfilling its campaign promises.
“I have to be very sensitive to the constitution of the
country. I do not like to be told by anybody, especially the
legislators, that I am interfering in their matter. There are
three arms of government: executive, legislature and the
judiciary. Over the last 16 years, they have developed the
system of choosing their leaders.
“There is no way I can directly interfere. All I can do
through the party is to appeal to their conscience that what
I already observed, we should go over it as soon as
possible.
When I say we, I mean the APC. We cannot win the battle
and lose the war. We must not allow individual personal
ambition to succeed in dividing us and allow PDP to deal
with us. This is what the National Assembly has allowed so
far, the APC is giving the PDP the allowance to take over
the government again.
“This is extremely disheartening, I am very worried. The
only think I can do is to appeal to the conscience of the APC
members in the Senate and House. It took us time to get to
where we are, I don’t want personal ambitions to scuttle our
success and therefore fail to deliver on our promises to the
nation.”
Asked to comment on the biggest challenges so far in his
two months in office, he said: “The challenges are what we
foresaw in the APC and what we campaigned on. They are
the three issues I mentioned earlier.
“The insecurity, the level of employment, especially of
youths. There are reliable data that more than 60 per cent
of Nigerian population are youths and most of them are
unemployed. This is a big keg of gun powder that the nation
is sitting on. The economy is virtually in tatters because of
corruption and inefficiency. The vicious cycle of corruption,
insecurity and unemployment has to be broken, otherwise,
they will break this country.
“I am appealing to Nigerians at all levels to be very cautious
of the situation we are in. Let us join our hands together
and save this country. We have to fight corruption because
we have to get the infrastructure led by power. But the first
thing, we have to secure the country before we can
efficiently manage it. Without security, nothing will work.
We are asking for the cooperation of Nigerians. None of the
part of the country should think that it can go on its own.
Nigeria has come to stay.”
Source: Sahara Reporters.
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