Just a few facts... There is a difference between going back to Egypt and moving on from Mount Horeb. The revisionist history going on now about Buharis first tenure is so disingenuous. Yes, he had missteps but the ridiculous assertions going on about Buharis supposed non performance are just disingenuous at best. Yes, he acted like military dictators do and we do not condone that at all. The atrocities committed then were horrible. Just like Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings of Ghana who later on turned into a passable civilian President. We just understand that GMB is not going to be able to govern that way in a Democracy. The downward spiral of Nigerias economy did not start with Buharis regime. There was an attempt to kick off a reversal and stop the rot which Shagaris government had instituted. Those allegations are similar to those who Blame president Obama for the economic travails during his first term but were really a manifestation of the actions of a Bush presidency. Many of the credits given to GEJ are a mirage. Figments of imagination really. Aviation? Eh? What has happened there? The said Agricultural resurrection is no more than media hype. What do we see on the ground... honestly? Data does not bear out those claims. I do not need to post them here. They are out there for all to read! Some are giving GEJ props because Nigerias economy has emerged as Africas best recently? Wow! How did his administration get that done exactly? Dont mistake a happenstance of circumstances for well thought out projects. What exactly do you mean by works? Every administration will do a few token projects to show that they are actually awake but in reality, take a trip around the country and see the works being executed. I notice many do not mention Security and Power which are two essential ingredients for an economy to grow. Those that mention an improvement in power generation like Dr Doyin Okupe must be speaking from both corners of their mouths saying, read my lips! What magic has GEJ used in moving Nigerias forward? Whatever progress seen in the economy isnt due to GEJs policies at all, in my opinion. It is more of him not being in the way of progress rather than him pushing the cart of progress. General Buhari defends his record. (I am using comments and extractions by Citizen Drebola Ngr on another Facebook post) I refused to remove the so-called petroleum subsidy. I said I had been in the petroleum industry for three and a quarter years. I signed the contracts for Warri and Kaduna refineries. I signed the contract for more than 20 depots, from Makurdi to Ilorin to Gusau to Kano to Maiduguri. And then pipes were laid over 3,200 kilometres. Nigeria didn’t borrow a kobo. if you go and interview Tam David-West, when I came back as head of state, and we stopped [illegal] bunkering, Nigeria was choked with product. We were exporting 100,000 barrels per day of refined products because Warri, Kaduna, Port Harcourt alone was doing 250,000 a day, the old refinery and the new one built… and we found out Nigeria was normally consuming about 300,000 barrels a day. All the people that were doing the [illegal] bunkering abandoned their jetties, their barges, because they knew who were sending them to jail or beyond. But now, Nigeria goes to world market and buys petrol as much as any other person does with all the infrastructure in place. That is how efficient the PDP government is (laughter). If you could recall, after 1983 elections, NEPA virtually collapsed. But when we came in 1984-1985, we had the late Lukman, an engineer. He was in Plateau when I was working as GOC 2 Armoured Division. I got to know him. He was an extremely truly hardworking engineer of great integrity. I put him in charge of NEPA. If you could recall, I did the tour of NEPA installations and some industries. And we ordered some spare parts mostly of the thermal station and we were using the military C130 aircraft to bring spare parts. By the time we were removed in August 1985, blackout in Lagos had been forgotten because the thermal station had been made functional. Lagos was the home of industries. Industries were given priority because of employment. If you close the factories, as they have done now, there will be no goods and services. Power is the most important thing for our sustained development. But unfortunately, the PDP government has failed to understand or accept that. Hence money, billions of dollars, goes down the drain. If from 1999 till now, in my own perception, Kainji, Jebba, Shiroro had been repaired and brought to optimal usage, and we do the thermal stations… it is a question of changing spare parts because the gas is there. The studies of Nigerian petroleum, the studies of 1970s when I became minister of petroleum, showed that Nigeria was a petroleum country in name; mostly it is a gas country. In the east of the Niger, the gas reserve there was fantastic. That was why LNG project was initiated. You cannot initiate LNG except you have a 30-year reserve to back you up. But this means nothing to the PDP government. It is not a priority. That’s why we find ourselves where we are.- (Culled from The Cables Exclusive Interview) 25TH OCTOBER 2014 For you to have claimed he did nothing while he was the Head of states #naivety#ignorance When we came into power, technically in December 1983 but we started in 1984, I had been part of Obasanjo’s government in petroleum. Nigeria handed over to the second republic government a relatively physically-secure and economically-safe country. I can’t recall exactly how much foreign reserve we had, but there was physical security and the economy was good. That is what the military handed over to the second republic. By the time the military came back and I happened to be the head of state, if anybody told you that he knew how much Nigeria was owing, it was a lie. So we had two committees, one international and the other local, to find out the debt Nigeria had accumulated over those years and how. This report has never seen the daylight because up to the time we were removed, it was not brought to us. But when it was eventually brought, by which time I was safely under lock and key, nobody could do anything about it. Secondly the American president then, Ronald Reagan, sent his friend, General Walters, to me saying we should accept the IMF programme. What was the IMF programme then? World Bank and IMF wanted us to remove the so-called petroleum subsidy, to devalue the naira, to remove the subsidy on flour, as they perceived it. But what we knew was that in some of the states, workers were being owed nine months salaries. I was in Plateau state and I saw the so-called progressive governors crisscrossing this country almost every other month, making a lot of noise when the ordinary worker was not being paid. I told Walters we were not going to devalue the naira; we were not going to remove any subsidy. And if you recall by the time we were removed, one naira was equal to 1.2 or 1.5 dollars. The naira was run down to N80 to a dollar by General Babangida’s regime. I refused to remove the so-called petroleum subsidy.- (Culled from The Cables Exclusive Interview) 25TH OCTOBER 2014
Posted on: Fri, 19 Dec 2014 12:25:40 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015