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.”
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