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| President Muhammadu Buhari |
Oil
thieves, including former ministers and some prominent individuals, have been
put on notice – the law is coming after them. President
Muhammadu Buhari did not name them, but he spoke of how they plundered
Nigeria’s economy by stealing one million barrels of crude oil daily, selling
the stuff overseas and lodging the proceeds in their personal accounts.
Buhari spoke on Tuesday at the Nigerian Embassy in Washington
D.C., United States (U.S.) at a parley with members of Nigerians In Diaspora Organization
(NIDO) as part of his four-day visit to the U.S.
The Nation reports:
He told his audience – NIDO members in America and Canada – that
his administration would recover “mind-boggling” sums of money stolen from the
oil sector.
“250,000 barrels per day of Nigerian crude were being stolen and
people sell and put the money into individual accounts,” he told NIDO members,
according to a statement issued yesterday by the President’s Senior Special
Assistant on Media, Garba Shehu.
The statement reported Buhari as vowing to trace the accounts of
individuals, who stashed away ill-gotten oil money, freeze such accounts,
recover the loot and prosecute the culprits.
Buhari lamented that “corruption in Nigeria has virtually
developed into a culture where honest people are abused”.
On the contentious fuel subsidy on which Nigeria spends billions
of dollars in months, the President disclosed that if fuel subsidy was removed;
transport, housing and food prices would go out of control and the average
worker would suffer untold hardship.
He said the U.S. and other developed countries had agreed to
assist in tracking the accounts where looted funds are deposited.
“We will ask that such accounts be frozen and their owners be
prosecuted,”, he said.
Buhari told the NIDO members: “The amount involved is
mind-boggling. Some former ministers were selling about one million barrels per
day. I assure you that we will trace and repatriate such money and use the
documents to prosecute them. A lot of damage has been done to the integrity of
Nigeria, with individuals and institutions already compromised.”
Citing the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC),
President Buhari said unlike what obtained when he held the forte as Federal
Commissioner for Petroleum in the military regime when the NNPC had only two
traceable accounts before paying oil proceeds into the Central Bank of Nigeria
(CBN), “now everybody is doing anyhow”.
Agreeing that the “economy is in an extremely bad shape”, Buhari
said the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led administration would fulfill its
three-pronged campaign manifesto of providing security, turning around the
economy with a major focus on youth employment and fighting corruption.
When asked if the Federal Government will negotiate with Boko
Haram to pave the way for the release of the abducted Chibok schoolgirls, the
President said his administration would only negotiate if genuine and confirmed
leaders of the militant sect came forward and convinced the government of the
conditions of the girls, their location and the sect’s willingness to
negotiate.
“Our objective is that we want the girls back, alive and
returned to their families and rehabilitated. We are working with neighbouring
countries, if they will help,” he said.
Buhari also said agriculture and mining would receive priority
attention as faster job-creation avenues for the teeming unemployed youths,
adding that some foreign investors had agreed to take advantage of the immense
business opportunities in the country.
Speaking on when he would form his cabinet, the President
jokingly observed that the question on the cabinet had been chasing him around
the world even to the point that he had been nicknamed “Baba Go Slow at home.”
He, however, noted that not even the Peoples Democratic Party
(PDP) during all the years it ruled the country ever formed a cabinet within
the first four months.
“I am going to go slow and steady,” he said, calling for
patience to allow the new administration “put some sense into governance and
deal with corruption”.
The President promised that his administration would at the
right time tap into the enormous talents available amongst members of NIDO,
especially as consultants. Their requests for voting right in 2019, a Diaspora
Commission and opening of new consulates in parts of the United States and
Canada are to be considered.
The President had earlier met at the same venue with a group of young
professionals in the U.S. and assured them of his administration’s resolve to
fight corruption, remain steadfast and invest heavily in education which he said
was the answer to taking the youth out of poverty and ignorance.
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