Adio: We made N70tr from oil in 15 years. How did we end in recession?

Waziri Adio, executive secretary of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), says the country had no business going into recession with the huge revenue from oil from 1999 to 2014.

He said while the three tiers of government earned and shared N70 trillion oil and gas revenue during the period, there was no provision for savings.

He was speaking on Monday when he played host to members of the senate committee on federal character and inter-governmental affairs who were on an oversight visit to his office in Abuja.

Adio said it would be necessary for Nigeria to develop prudent spending to avoid lapsing into recession again.

Adio said: “Let me inform the committee that we discovered that between 1999 and 2014, the country spent over N70 trillion it received from oil and gas alone. That is a whole lot of money. What is sad is that it was spent without the country being able to show anything for it. I think it is quite unfortunate.

“For the sake of emphasis, however, I think if previous administrations had developed a culture for prudent management of resources, Nigeria ought to have over $100 billion saved in the excess crude account. So, going forward, it is necessary for government to think about saving a lot more, and do all it can as well to cut down on wasteful spending if the nation must make progress.”