President Buhari has promised to deal with militants in the Niger Delta and abductors holding the nation hostage.
Buhari was speaking with select newspaper editors as he finished his first year in office.
President Buhari also added that any suspect implicated in the $2.1billion arms purchase scandal will be punished because the money were unlawfully diverted from the public funds.
The president added on the arms scandal: “How can you take $2.1 billion meant to fight insurgency and share among yourselves and think that nothing should happen? Not to talk of when political money is being raised for elections and the Central Bank of Nigeria, NNPC, Customs funds are where the funds are collected from.
“We’ve made some progress in recovering this money, which I promised I will tell the nation in the next two or three days, just to show Nigerians that we haven’t given up and have no intention of giving up. We’re giving the people the opportunity of fair trial.
“They took the money and paid into some persons’ accounts, and there are signatures of some persons who admitted that they had taken the money. Somebody comes and calls another, saying ‘you’re a member of this party?’ The other person responds by saying ‘yes’. Then, he’s told ‘take a N100 million to go and keep,’ and the other person doesn’t ask any questions. You take a N100 million and disappear, and subsequently you complain that you have received money for doing nothing?”
“Nobody would invest in an insecure environment. Those who had been in Nigeria for so many years can conduct feasibility studies. But why do they put money paying militants or paying for corruption? This means with all the goodwill we are winning, we may not be able to benefit in the long run because of the kidnapping and the actions of the militants,” Buhari said speaking about the militants and abductors.
“So it is a top priority for this government to address. Once we settle down to make sure that we deal with militants, we will deal with kidnappers also. We will secure this country.”
“I challenged Nigerian economists to tell me what benefits Nigeria has earned from the devaluation so far. How many factories have we built by killing the Naira? I have to reluctantly give up because the so-called Nigerian economists come and talk things to me, and when I raise issues they talk over my head instead of inside my head.
“For us to lose over N300 (every year we’re losing the value of the currency by N100), what for? Let them tell me how many factories they’ve built. I find myself in a very difficult state because the economists cannot tell me why we should continue to devalue our Naira. People say import, and we find out that we are just importing food! We’re now planning to stop importation of rice, wheat, maize in three years’ time”
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