Buhari Blames Jonathan, Wicked Manipulators For Escalation Of Subsidies On Petroleum Products

President Muhammadu Buhari Tuesday in Abuja blamed past administrations
for the current situation in which Nigeria is forced to spend billions of
Naira annually on alleged subsidies for petroleum products.

Speaking at a meeting with the Chairman and members of the Revenue
Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), President Buhari
expressed the view that the escalation of petroleum subsidy payments over
recent years was due to the deliberate neglect of the nation’s refineries,
oil pipelines and other related infrastructure to allow the importation of
petroleum products and corruption to thrive.

The President, who restated his huge disappointment with the way Nigeria’s
oil industry has been run since he left office as Petroleum Minister and
Military Head of State, said that he was convinced 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 allowed the infrastructure to collapse so that their cronies can
steal by bringing in refined products from overseas,” President Buhari
said.

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

President Buhari also warned that severe sanctions will be visited on any
individual or organisation that violates the directive on the payment of
all national revenue into the Federation Account.

The President said that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, the
Nigerian Ports Authority and other MDAs which previously relied on the
laws establishing them to retain all or part of revenues collected by
them, did so illegally and must now comply with the Nigerian Constitution
by paying all revenues to the Federation Account.

President Buhari, who also chided the RMAFC for approving excessive
remunerations for some political office holders, urged the commission to
seek a proper interpretation of its powers and address the public outcry
against the unreasonably high payments.