Looters Recruited Militants to Frustrate My Efforts – Buhari Reveals in US

“After 16 years of a different party in government, no party will come and have things easy. It’s human. We need quality hands to run Nigeria, and we will utilize them.

“God has been very good to me, so I can’t complain. If I feel hurt by anybody, I ask God to help me forgive. He has done so much for me.


In the military, I rose from 2nd Lieutenant to Major-General. I was a military governor in 1975 over a state that is now six states. I was Head of State, got detained for three years, and headed the Petroleum Trust Fund, PTF, which had N53 billion of that time in Nigerian banks.

It is a disgrace that a minimum of 27 states, out of 36 that we have in Nigeria, can’t pay salaries. “But I prayed so hard for God to make me President. I ran in 2003, 2007, 2011, and in 2015, He did. And see what I met on ground. But I can’t complain since I prayed for the job.

“In most parts of Nigeria, we eat what we grow. People in the South eat tubers, those in the North eat grains, which they plant, and they constitute over 60 percent of what we eat. So, where did the billions of dollars go? Where did it fly to? I further asked, what did we do with billions of dollars that we made over the years? They said we bought food. Food with billions of dollars? I did not believe, and still, do not believe.

“Those who stole Nigeria dry are not happy. They recruited the militants against us in the Niger Delta and began to sabotage oil infrastructure. We lose millions of barrels per day, at a time when every dollar we can earn, counts.

Suddenly, when we came in 2015, oil prices fell to about 30 dollars per barrel. “I asked, where are the savings? There were none. Where are the railways? The roads? Power? None.

President Muhammadu Buhari has lamented that the resurgence of militancy in the Niger Delta region was orchestrated by those who looted Nigeria’s wealth in order to frustrate his efforts at rebuilding the country.

He also regretted that the present socio-economic crisis would have been avoided if the country had saved its oil revenue from 1999-2015 when oil prices stood at an average of $100 per barrel.