Archives : Daily Times Newspaper Of 1977 Show Buhari’s Inabilities In Fuel Management
The Oasis Reporters
December 24, 2017
That’s a photo of the NNPC GMD in 1977, Col. Muhammadu Buhari back then.
He’s still the Petroleum Minister today.
A Daily Times of Nigeria newspaper report of June 7, 1977 that surfaced into circulation in the social media recently has unwittingly exposed the lie marketed during the 2015 election that Muhammadu Buhari who was the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Group Managing Director then after his stint as a Petroleum Minister 41 years ago, was a good manager of petroleum matters.
Nigerian youths who were sold the lie are now biting their fingers in regret over their choice in the face of the excruciating petroleum crisis that has befallen Nigeria in the Christmas season once again.
About 40 years ago with then Col. Muhammadu Buhari as the NNPC GMD who sat atop a huge Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) (commonly called Petrol) scarcity in Nigeria, and despite promises to end the shortages, has once again as petroleum minister in his mid seventies, continued to preside over another lingering fuel scarcity in the country, albeit with an apology for the long suffering citizenry over an obvious incompetence that has spanned a generation and no end in sight with yet again, more promises.
Nigeria is Africa’s largest producer of crude oil yet with an embarrassing inability to refine it for domestic use, an endemic shame that can best be regarded as chronic and perennial.
The Daily Times of Nigeria newspaper is regarded as the oldest surviving national daily in the country, and at a time was government owned, yet was highly respected for it’s professionalism and reliability, capturing Nigeria’s history for over one hundred years.
On the front page can be seen the lead story in 1977 with Muhammadu Buhari’s photo in army fatigues which he has given up for civilian dress in retirement, until he was propelled into the presidency, obviously displaying traits of the same 40 year old problem without solution because restructuring has often been rejected by the powerful forces that run the government, throwing in the same people and the same solution to the same problem that has defied every palliative measure for four decades.
At the moment, many Nigerian travellers wishing to reunite with their loved ones are stranded with fares skyrocketing to abnormal heights.
A trip from Lagos to Benin city in Nigeria’s south south that hitherto would cost two thousand naira is now priced between 10,000 naira to 13,000 naira, whereas Nigeria’s minimum wage is 18,000 naira monthly and almost ten thousand jobs(estimated but not confirmed by the National Bureau for Statistics)has been lost so far in less than two years.
This government promised more jobs, yet more redundancies are being recorded.
