1990 —2014 : NIGERIA RECEIVED USD1TRILLION FROM OIL ……Prof Osinbajo
….says Nigeria needs fiscal Federalism, good governance, not
geographical Restructuring.
The Vice President Professor Yemi Osinbajo said oil revenue
accruable to Nigeria under successive administrations between 1990
and 2014 is about one trillion dollars.
Relying on the statistics of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting
Countries (OPEC) THE Vice President said despite the huge earnings
not much was done in infrastructural development inspite of the
huge oil revenue earned.
The Vice President made this disclosure while fielding questions
from a cross section of Nigerians at a town hall meeting in Minnesota,
USA recently.
A statement signed by the Senior Special Assistant to the Vice
President on Media and Publicity Mr Laolu Akande made available to
NEWSPLATFORM MEDIA, Professor Osinbajo said under the Babangida/
Abacha administration (1990 – 1998 Nigeria realized USD199.8
billion.
Under the Obasanjo/ YarAdua government (1999– 2009) the
country got USD 401.1 billion, and during the Jonathan’s
administration (2000—2014) Nigeria got USD 381.9 billion from oil
alone.
He said ‘the question that we must ask all is that what exactly
happened to the resources , the question is where are the
infrastructures ?
HE said “ one of the critical things that we must bear in mind and
see is that this (Buhari ) government despite earning USD94billion
up to 2017, we are spending more on infrastructure and capital than
any previous governments, so we are spending N1.5 trillion on
capital, that is the highest we have spent since 1990”
According to the Vice President ‘the problem with Nigeria is not a
matter of restructuring.’
He said Nigeria must not allow themselves to be drawn into the
argument that Nigeria’s problem stemmed from some geographical
restructuring pointing out that the issue is about managing the
resources properly.
He said he has always believed in fiscal federalism, state Police
and stronger states, ‘ I serve for eight years as Attorney General of
Lagos state and one of the chief issues that we fought for in Lagos
state was you will call fiscal federalism, we felt that there was need
for the states to be stronger , for states to more or less
dewtermine their fortunes, for example we went to court to to
contest the idea that that every state should control, to a certain
extent its own resources, we went to court at that time, up to the
supreme court and the court ruled that oil producing states should
continue to get 13 percent derivation, while we were at the supreme
court only the oil producing states and Lagos were interested in
resource control for obvious reasons
‘Now, that is the way the argument has always gone, those who have
the resources want to take all of it , while those who do not have
want to share from others.’