El-Rufai: It is uncharitable to say Buhari has impoverished the people

Nasir el-Rufai, governor of Kaduna, says it is uncharitable for people to claim that President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration has impoverished some citizens.

He said people ought to compare the resources at the country’s disposal in the past with what is available at the moment.

Maintaining that the country is paying the price of mismanagement of the past, el- Rufai said without diversification, the problem would get worse.

“When people say that this administration has impoverished them, I think they are not being charitable, because I have said that we inherited a governmental structure at state and federal levels built around the assumption that price of oil will remain at $100 per barrel,” he told state house correspondents.

“By the time we took over, prices dipped to as low as $26 per barrel. Now, when 80 per cent of government revenues depend on the price of oil and the quantity of oil you sell reduces, you must expect a cut in your consumption if the price collapses.

“If your own household your salary is slashed by 80 per cent, what do you do? There is painful adjustment in the funding.

“You have to seek your family and explain to them that this is what is happening; your salary has been slashed by 80 per cent, so rice is off the table and it is now ‘garri’  and so on.

“This is what Nigeria is going through. Essentially, our revenues have collapsed by about 40 per cent to 60 per cent if you compare it with, say, 2014. This collapse happened because the price of oil has moved from a high of $140 a barrel around 2013 to a low of $26 per barrel in February 2016.”

He also blamed the current situation on the resurgence of militancy in the Niger Delta region.

“Secondly, we were producing over two million barrels of oil per day but because of vandalism in the Delta, production went to as low as 1.1 million barrels per day,” he said.

El-Rufai said in 2007 when he left office as minister of the federal capital territory (FCT), the administration of Olusegun Obasanjo handed over $40 billion in reserve and $27 billion in excess crude account.

“That is what we handed over to Yar’adua (late Umaru),” he said.

“Coming back as governor of Kaduna there is only $2.1 bn in excess crude account and when we left office the price of oil was $75 per barrel.”

He accused those who thereafter came into office of “blowing the savings, earning $300 billion and spending it, borrowing over $60 billion in the period and spending all”.

“It is up to President Buhari to clear that mess,” he said.