Why Buhari, Finance Minister, NNPC, Can’t Tell How Much Nigeria Has – Prince Adebayo
*As SDP Presidential Candidate Pledges, Diversification, Full Disclosure Funds If…
The Presidential Candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Prince Adewole Adebayo, has said that as Nigeria is being run, President Muhammadu Buhari, Finance Minister and the leadership of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Limited) cannot give Nigerians the exact figure of the amount the country has, assuming that if elected President in 2023, he would make full disclosure about the country’s money.
The International legal luminary made his plan known in a chat with journalists on the State of the Nation, lamenting that over the years, Nigerians and even government officials are not aware of the whereabouts of Nigeria’s money.
He noted that the reason is because the country’s revenue processes are shrouded in mystery, pledging full diversification of the source of revenue to the country.
The SDP Presidential hopeful explained that “One of the things that you Nigerians will know when I get to office is that you will know where your money is. There is too much mystery about Nigerian money.
“Even President Buhari today cannot tell you how much money Nigeria has. Board members of NNPC, now NNPC Limited, don’t know how much the company has. Minister of Finance does not know where government money is.
“You will have a full forensic of where your money is once I get into office,” Prince Adewole Adebayo asserted.
Decrying Nigeria’s over-dependence on oil, he vowed that petroleum under his government won’t be the sole source of revenue.
“Nigeria makes about 20m dollars from ginger. Even in a good year, we don’t gross up to 120m dollars a year.
“If only we invest a little more to squeeze our ginger and get ginger oil, we will be making 1.4b dollars from ginger oil.
“If you go into the value chain of some of the produce, you will see that petroleum isn’t a big deal.
“At the peak of Jonathan’s tenure when oil price was above 100 dollars and everybody was clapping, I wasn’t really impressed because I have an oil palm plantation that I was selling my palm oil at 660 dollars per barrel.
“This was why Michael Opara created the Ada palm in the Eastern region. I am not the kind of president who is running for office because of NNPC Limited.
“Presidency under me won’t share oil money. Rather, I will put the federal government allocation of the money into sovereign fund and then dedicate it to building hospitals all over the place. I am not going to mainstream oil money into my budget”, he said.
Prince Adewole Adebayo hinting on cultural of savings, the SDP Presidential Candidate noted that “the present generation has spent enough of oil money, we need to keep for the future.”
