By Chinwendu Agoha (Governance Reporter)
The Buhari Media Organisation (BMO) has challenged the People's Democratic Party (PDP) to show evidence of how its administrations spent over $300bn that accrued to the country from crude sales between 2010 and 2015
The group says it is raising this query against the backdrop of a report issued by the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) on aggregate financial flows from the oil and gas sector between 2010 and 2019.
In a statement by its Chairman, Niyi Akinsiju and Secretary, Cassidy Madueke, BMO averred that the NEITI report showed that Nigeria earned $418.54bn in a 10-year period from the sector, out of which more than $300bn was recorded in the PDP years.
"The report issued by the oil and gas watchdog is incontrovertible proof of what President Muhammadu Buhari has always said about the period when oil was sold at an average of $100 per barrel.
"The report indeed showed that the country had made in excess of $300bn from the sector alone before President Buhari assumed office, with 2011 recording the highest accruals of $68.44bn.
"We wish to remind Nigerians to note that in spite of the windfall, the last PDP administration still took loans from local and international lenders and left behind a debt stock of $63bn.
"We are constrained to yet again ask what the previous governments led by the former ruling party used those crude proceeds for, as well as the loans it took, especially as there was little or no impact on infrastructure development, and the public, in the period leading to, and up to 2015.
"For the avoidance of doubt, it was at about this time of oil windfall that a World Bank report indicated that 112 million, or about 63% of Nigerians, were living under the poverty threshold of less than $1 a day, compared to now that the figure has reduced to 82.9m as at 2019 even with a higher parameter of $1.90 a day.
"So it is safe to say that the masses did not feel the impact of the huge oil receipts of the PDP years compared to now that part of the proceeds has been committed to what the World Bank has described as the largest social welfare initiative in Sub-saharan Africa".
The group added that the 10-year NEITI report showed that the country made an estimated $106bn from the oil and gas sector within the first term of the Buhari administration.
"A cursory look at the annual data showed that the highest that Nigeria got from crude sales in President Buhari's first term was $34.22bn in 2019 which is a 4.88% increase on the 2018 accruals of $32.63bn.
"We invite Nigerians to note that the combined oil receipts from 2018 and 2019 are not even up to the $68bn received in 2011 but which many are still wondering how PDP frittered it away.
"So when officials of the Buhari administration say that this government is doing more with less, it is within this context and especially as legacy projects, including the Lagos to Ibadan railway line, were started and completed alongside the abandoned Itakpe-Warri rail project which began 33 years ago but was completed by the incumbent administration. There is also the ongoing Second Niger Bridge and the Kaduna-Kano highway, amongst others.
"We also want to place it on record that there is a gradual economic diversification process by President Buhari which is not restricted to agriculture alone but to other non-oil sectors.
"It was therefore not surprising that in NEITI's 2019 audit report on the solid mineral sector which has just been released, the country had an earning of N79.96bn which is the highest it has made since 2007 that the watchdog began to keep tabs on mining and also reconcile payments from the sector".
BMO reassured Nigerians that President Buhari will continue to live up to the responsibilities of his office by working hard to leave the country better than what the last PDP administration handed over to him. NNL.
