Nigerians, stop scapegoating President Buhari – El-Rufai says
- Kaduna state Governor Nasir el-Rufai has urged Nigerians to stop accusing President Muhammadu Buhari of their sufferings and hardships
- The governor has dwelled on the current ecomic recession and difficulties the present administration is fighting with
Nasir el-Rufai, the governor of Kaduna state, has called on people of Nigeria to be more patient and stop scapegoating their president for mistakes of previous administrations.
The governor made the statement to state house correspondents after a meeting of the National Economic Council (NEC) presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.
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The comment comes as a follow up to the statement made by Udoma Udo Udoma, the minister of budget and national planning, on the current government not being accountable for Nigeria's economic recession.
He stated: "When people say that this administration has impoverished them, they are not being charitable because I have said we inherited a governmental structure that was based on the assumption that price of oil will remain $100 per barrel.
By the time we took over, prices reduced to as low as $26 per barrel. 80 per cent of government revenue depends on the price of oil and the quantity of oil sold.
You must expect a cut in your consumption if the price collapses. If in your own household, your salary is slashed by 80 per cent, what will you do?
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This is what Nigeria is going through. Our revenues have collapsed by about 40 per cent to 60 per cent if you compare it to say 2014.
This collapse happened because there is a reduction in price of oil. Secondly, we were producing over two million barrels of oil per day but because of the situation in the Niger Delta, we are now producing about 1.1million barrels per day.
It is therefore inevitable that there will be loss and pain. But to say that it is government that is doing it without referring to the cause is not fair.
When I left government as minister in 2007, we left $40billion in reserves and $27billion in the Excess Crude Account that was what we handed over to Yar’Adua.
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Coming back as the governor of Kaduna state, the people that came after us have blown the money.
They blew all we left behind, blew what they earned and borrowed, leaving President Buhari and his team to clear the mess. Nobody is even talking about that."
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