President Buhari Departs Nigeria For Malta To Attend Commonwealth Meeting

President of the federal republic of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari,will be leaving Nigeria today for Malta to attend Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting which begins in the island nation on Friday. 

At the conclusion of the Summit on Sunday, President Buhari will leave Malta for Paris where he will present Nigeria's statement at the United Nations Climate Change Conference scheduled to open in the French capital on Monday, November 30.
The President will join over 100 other world leaders at the Leaders Event on the opening day of the conference which will be hosted by President Francois Hollande of France and the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Mr. Ban Ki Moon.

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PDP Slams Buhari For Snubbing Handover Programme

Read press statement by the PDP below...

 The peoples Democratic Party (PDP) views with disappointment the apparent snub by the President-elect, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari of the handover programme lined up by the Federal Government to transmit power to him by Friday, May 29, 2015. The PDP said such behavior was a measure of lack of democratic discipline.

PDP National Publicity Secretary, Olisa Metuh in a statement on Sunday said the President-elect owes Nigerians explanations on why he snubbed the prayer sessions scheduled for Friday and Sunday for Muslims and Christians respectively to usher in four years of his in-coming administration as well as the embarrassing protocol gaffe and low-down treatment that characterized his visit to British Prime Minister David Cameron last Saturday.

The PDP said it was disgraceful that due to poor coordination and crass ineptitude in the handling of issues, the President-elect was left almost stranded while waiting for about thirty minutes before he was received by the British leader and wondered if such is a foretaste of the muddling to be experienced under the All Progressives Congress (APC)’s administration.

“Nigerians, as citizens of a sovereign nation were thoroughly embarrassed when they saw their President-elect cheapened and kept waiting at the door of 10 Downing Street to see the British Prime Minister due to shoddy arrangements by his handlers.

“Indeed, they are becoming increasingly worried about the frightening unpreparedness of the APC for governance and the huge embarrassments they have been attracting to our nation. We know that the APC has been lying over issues.  We also know that the APC and the President-elect have been flip-flopping and reneging on their campaign promises; but to embarrass the nation by embarking on such a sensitive visit without adequate preparations is shameful and completely unacceptable.

“We share the fear of well-meaning Nigerians on how a party which cannot adequately handle a simple task of organizing a diplomatic outing will effectively administer a country as complex as Nigeria.

“The APC has continued to give signals that it lacks capacity to face the challenges of governance. Such has been evidenced in the uneasiness of the President-elect who in apparent loss of confidence in himself has started reneging on his promises of quick fixes while confessing in a meeting with APC governors-elect on May 5, 2015 that he has ‘started nervously to explain to people that Rome was not built in a day’.

“Instead of settling down for governance and working out how to fulfill its promises of making the naira the same in value with the dollar, paying N5, 000, 000 monthly to 25 million poor Nigerians, providing electricity on 24/7 basis, providing free meals for school children and allowances for discharged but unemployed youth corps members among others, the APC is busy inventing excuses for failure and blaming everyone else but themselves. We hope they will not blame the PDP for their Saturday’s embarrassing outing at 10 Downing Street.

"Furthermore, we find it curious and more than a co-incidence that the nation is experiencing an acute shortage of fuel and electricity supply at this point in time, when such has not been the case under the current PDP-led administration.  We ask, are there some forces sabotaging the system to create an impression that the APC is inheriting poor infrastructure and complete system breakdown?

"Is this also part of the larger plot to embarrass and defame the PDP-led administration in an attempt to justify APC's excuses for failure", the PDP probed.

The party insisted that despite the challenges of insecurity and global economic recession that negatively affected many other nations, its administration had in the last 16 years worked very hard in repositioning critical sectors of the polity and laying strong infrastructure backbone that that any prepared and result oriented in-coming administration can comfortably leverage on.

It therefore asked the APC to get ready to apply its much-mouthed manifesto or be bold to apologize to Nigerians for presenting false messianic posture and making false promises to them.

Signed:

Olisa Metuh

National Publicity Secretary

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'I Don’t Know What Fuel Subsidy Means' - Incoming President, Buhari Says

 In his new interview with Daily Trust, President elect, Buhari expressed reservations over claims by the government of subsidizing the petroleum sector. He spoke on how during his time as Military leader, they were able to make fuel available at all times. Below are excerpts of what he said in the interview...

One burning issue is fuel subsidy. I believe you are aware of the queues in major cities like Lagos and Abuja. The fuel importers say they are unsure of the direction of the new government in this area. Have you considered maintaining or withdrawing this subsidy or are you questioning whether it didn’t exist at all?

One of the problems I have, other than the military, is the petroleum industry where I served for three and a half years under General Obasanjo. When people start talking about this subsidy I honestly get confused. I will tell you this, and I hope it will answer what you want to know. Back then we had a refinery in Port Harcourt, which was refining 30,000 barrels a day of Nigerian crude. Later, it was upgraded to refine 100,000 barrels a day.

Another refinery was built in Port Harcourt to refine 150,000 barrels per day of Nigerian crude. So, Port Harcourt alone had the capacity to refine 250,000 barrels per day of Nigerian crude. But when I found myself as the Minister of Petroleum I set up another refinery in Warri for 100, 000 barrels per day of Nigerian crude and the Kaduna refinery a 100, 000 barrels per day. So Nigeria built capacity to refine 450,000 a day. Four Hundred thousands of which is purely Nigerian crude, but 50,000 was imported. The type of crude could be Venezuelan, which could be a bit heavier. But the lighter ones - kerosene, aviation fuel, diesel, PMS of different grades could be produced from our crude because Nigerian crude is about the best in the world. If you could recall, after finishing as Minister of Petroleum, I subsequently became Head of State.

You remember, I appointed Professor Tam David West as the Minister of Petroleum. When we rounded up bunkers, collected their illegal jetties and allowed jetties for only big firms which were doing production and development in the country, we were shocked that we had too much fuel. We had to begin to export 100,000 barrels per day. Don’t forget that we didn’t stop at building refineries, we built more than 20 depots during my time, from Port Harcourt to Ilorin, Makurdi, Suleija, Maiduguri and Kano. More than 3,000 pipelines were laid to connect them. A number of stations were also built to take the trailers off the road, save lives and the infrastructure on the road. It is more economical because each trailer uses fuel.

We did all that in this country and we didn’t borrow any money as far as I know. It’s Nigerian money. From each Nigerian crude, whether Akwa Ibom, Bonny Light or whatever it is, you can work out how much products it will give you; how much petrol it will give you; how much diesel it will give you if you want to produce diesel. We could tell how much Nigerian crude cost, the cost of transportation from there to the refinery, the cost of refining, the cost of transportation to the pump stations and maybe 5 per cent go for overhead. I can understand if Nigerians pay for those cost but somebody is saying he is subsidizing Nigerians. Who is subsidizing who?

But they argue that the price should not be the same in Lagos and Daura, for example? 

It has to be the same because it is the Nigerian crude.

But they consider the cost of transportation? 

Why didn’t it make any difference when we were around? Why did we build the network of pipelines? Why did we build the network of depots? What can Nigerians benefit from the God-given gift of petroleum? No refinery is built unless there is an in-depth research that there is enough reserve of up to six layers to be produced.

The argument I have heard is that refineries are aged. Mostly, they are performing at less than half of their capacity…? 

You can’t defend these corrupt and incompetent people. You can’t defend them. There used to be what they call turn-around-maintenance. You close the refinery in order to overhaul and clean it. What we did: we asked our producers, we need various refined products of this type at this time when the refineries are being cleaned. Take this type of Nigerian crude and bring us the refined products. What we don’t need, we will calculate and pay you as fees for refining and transportation. If it is more than what the crude can handle, then we take it from the treasury. But you are trying to justify all these frauds by saying the refineries are aged.

Of course, they are actually aged? 

They said the refineries are aged. The pipelines are leaking. There is vandalisation. Who ordered the vandalisation?

Does it suggest that you don’t believe in the subsidy? So, you are not going to agree to its continuation in anyway?

I would like to be on ground and find out what really has been going wrong. Why is it that people are doing round-tripping with the Nigerian products and take money from the treasury? Some people are still in court. You know about it. So, I’m not taking anything for granted. But I will try and find out what went wrong.

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Jonathan has not given me any useful tips - Buhari Says

 President-elect Muhammadu Buhari says the outgoing Goodluck Jonathan government hasnt given him any advise on how to kick-start his administration on May 29.

 He made this statement on Thursday when a committee from the Centre for Human Security of the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library, presented a five-point policy document to him at the Buhari Support Organisation office in Abuja.

 Hours before the event which held behind closed doors, the All Progressives Congress,accused the Federal Government of not cooperating with the transition committee set up by the President-elect.

“Buhari regretted that the outgoing government that is supposed to give him tips on how to take off has done nothing so far,” Garba Shehu, the Director of Media and Publicity of the All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Organisation, told journalists after the presentation by the committee.

Shehu added that the President-elect “thanked the Obasanjo initiative for the gesture, assuring the committee that his incoming administration will be needing advice as time goes on.”

Areas covered by committee in the   document    include the economy, security, power, education and infrastructure.

Earlier on Thursday , the APC described as untrue, a statement credited to the spokesman for the Peoples Democratic Party, Oliseh Metuh, that the   Jonathan administration was cooperating with the transition committee constituted by the President-elect.

It also described Metuh in a statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Lai Mohammed, as a man with “an incurable disdain for truth.”

The PDP spokesman had   in the said statement accused the APC of raising a false alarm over happenings within the Jonathan and the Buhari transition committees.

However, Mohammed insisted that the uncooperative attitude of the Jonathan team   had continued despite its public posturing.

The   APC statement Read, “We say with all sense of responsibility that as of today, May 14, 2015, just about two weeks to the May 29 handover date, no shred of information as to the status of governance from any ministry, department or agency of government has been given to our transition committee.”

“If that qualifies, in Metuh’s lexicon, as cooperation, then there is a problem somewhere. We dare Metuh or anyone for that matter, to controvert the fact that not a line of handover note has been handed over to our transition committee.”

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