Hope Uzodimma, governor of Imo, says the country will
continue to rely on the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to secure the country’s
economy.
Uzodimma said this on Friday while speaking with state house
correspondents after meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari.
The World Bank had said the current petrol subsidy regime
poses an “existential threat” to Nigeria, adding that the country would have to
eventually get rid of the arrangement.
In response to this, the governor said the bank’s projections were perpetually inaccurate.
“Our own bank is
Central Bank of Nigeria and we are going to look up to them to come up with
policies that will protect and secure our economy,” he said.
Uzodimma added that “25 years ago, before 1999, the World
Bank had always said Nigeria will break into pieces and today Nigeria has not
been broken into a half piece”.
“This country is loved by God and our faith in God has been
keeping this country,” he said.
According to him, the country has allies who are “friendly
enemies” — internationally and nationally — but Nigeria continues to exist.
“There is nowhere in the world you will go and the gas
stations you will see are not Shell, ExxonMobil, Texaco Overseas, all the major
oil producing companies,” he said.
“It is only in Nigeria that you will hear languages like
independent marketers, Okafor & Sons Filling Station and all that. What is the
World Bank saying about that?
“It is only in Nigeria you talk about subsidy. What is World
Bank saying about that?
“It is only in
Nigeria you hear jargons like turnaround maintenance. Where else in the world
do you have such language?
“A refinery is a process plant that requires just routine
maintenance and cleaning, but here we spend billions of dollars to do what they
call turnaround maintenance.
“If you have been to the United States, Texas in particular,
where crude oil production is heavy, when you are arriving Houston airport,
look at the environment; they plant vegetables, farmers live there, an
environment where they produce crude oil.
“What is the cost of producing one barrel of crude oil in
Houston by Shell and what is the cost of producing one barrel of crude oil by
Shell in Nigeria?
“But if you are
landing in Warri Airport, look at the local river, there is no fish anymore,
the place is highly polluted. There’s total disregard to our environmental laws
and nobody’s raising all these issues, rather what we want to occupy ourselves
with is knowing a party that has Muslim-Muslim ticket and a party that has
Christian-Christian ticket.
“So, they are making a mockery of us and if we don’t rise up
and address our challenges, nobody, I repeat, nobody, will do it for us. We
have to define our country, we have to identify, collectively, our national
interest so we can also collectively defend it.”
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