Buhari blames past leaders for corruption, oil sector failure

President Muhammadu Buhari has blamed his predecessors for the way Nigeria’s oil industry has been run since he left office as Petroleum Minister and Military Head of State in 1985.

The president, who spoke on Tuesday during a meeting with a delegation of the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, noted that those who ruled the country since 1985 allowed the nation’s refineries to collapse in order to give their cronies the opportunity to steal by importing refined petroleum products.

According to a statement by the Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to the president, Garba Shehu, the president expressed dissatisfaction with the current situation in which Nigeria is forced to spend billions of Naira annually on alleged subsidies for petroleum products.

He maintained that if the development of the country’s domestic refining capacity and petroleum products distribution network had kept pace with national demand, there would not have been any need for the huge subsidies currently being paid to importers.

“They (past administrations) allowed the infrastructure to collapse so that their cronies can steal by bringing in refined products from overseas,” the President was quoted to have said.

Read also: Buhari to try looters in ‘matter of weeks’

The President, according to Shehu, also blamed the RMAFC for approving what he described as “excessive remunerations” for some political office holders and advised the delegation to seek a proper interpretation of the commission’s powers and address the public outcry against the unreasonably high payments.

He however, urged the chairman and members of the RMAFC, who availed him of their view on petroleum subsidy, to go back to the drawing board  and come up with more humane proposals to rescue ordinary Nigerians from what he described as the “wicked manipulation” of the country’s oil industry by corrupt operators.

Those who have ruled the country from1985 till are Gen. Ibrahim Babangida (retd.); Chief Ernest Shonekan; late Gen. Sani Abacha; Gen. Abdusalami Abubakar; Chief Olusegun Obasanjo; late President Umar Yar’Adua and former President Goodluck Jonathan.

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