Since President Buhari assumed office last year, violence has returned to the Niger Delta, with militant groups blowing up oil pipelines and installations. Talks are being planned to resolve the crisis but not all of the groups involved have agreed to sit down and negotiate, saying they do not trust the government.
Yesterday, President Buhari alleged that those who stole the nation’s wealth are behind the Niger Delta militants blowing up oil and gas installations in the oil-rich region. He made the allegation while interacting with Nigerian professionals in New York on the sidelines of the 71st United Nations General Assembly.
Among who met with President Buhari, were professionals comprising of top flight aeronautics engineers, physicians, IT experts, a judge, a top policewoman, entrepreneurs, professors and many others. President Buhari's spokesman Femi Adesina, said the parley provided him opportunity to bring them up to speed on how and why Nigeria got into trouble.
He said the president assured them that with all hands on deck, including the best brains in the diaspora, the country would bounce back in the shortest possible time. According to the president, a combination of corruption and bad planning was responsible for Nigeria's current economic woes
President Buhari said: “Those who stole Nigeria dry are not happy, so they recruited the militants against us in the Niger Delta and began to sabotage oil infrastructure. We lose millions of barrels per day, at a time when every dollar we can earn, counts.
"It is a disgrace that a minimum of 27 states, out of 36 that we have in Nigeria, can’t pay salaries. We got into trouble as a country because we did not save for the rainy day, as for example, between 1999 and 2015, when we produced an average of 2.1m barrels of oil per day and oil prices stood at an average of $100 per barrel, we did not save, neither did we develop infrastructure."
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