President Muhammadu Buhari has given reasons why he will continue to blame previous administrations for Nigeria’s current economic challenges.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which ruled the country for 16 years had former Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo in charge from 1999 to 2007, late Umoru Musa Yar’Adua from 2007 and 2010 and Goodluck Jonathan from 2010 to 2015.
Speaking at a public presentation of a pictorial book titled: “Buhari: A New Beginning” and Conversation themed: “Creative Youth as Drivers of the Change Agenda,” at the Presidential Villa on Thursday night, Buhari said those that were in charge in the last 17 years took things for granted despite God’s huge blessings for Nigeria.
The conversation had seven selected youths exchanging ideas and highlighting challenges in the creative industry.
Buhari said: “My dear countrymen especially the youths, you have a fantastic country, God has endowed Nigeria with human and material resources.
“I’m going to bore you with what we met, I know I’m being accused in the papers of passing the buck. But passing the buck is sometimes absolutely necessary to remind people who take things for granted.
“When we came in by some unfortunate coincidence, I scream to high heavens because I had promised a lot while seeking vote. I said where are the savings? There was none. There was no infrastructure, power, rails, roads, there was none. What did we spend the money on? I was told buying food and petrol.
“Where were the billions going? We conducted a study and found out that the oil marketers were committing fraud on at least one third of what they were importing, which is about 25 per cent of our foreign exchange.
“The youths must watch our elites. The condition we found ourselves, it is unpatriotic for anybody to pretend that economically we have not had a problem.
“We have gone into the farms, I congratulate some of the governors and by the grace of God by the end of this government we will be exporting rice and grains. So all the money alleged to have been used to import will be available to sustain development.
“I have bored you with this long explanation because there are things that could be hidden from you by those that had mismanaged the country in the last 16, 17 years.”