Daily Trust

Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission said, if he must take the money for any purpose, there is always a criteria.

Although he was already not feeling too well, that is why the disagreement did not degenerate and people did not know much about it. But he demanded and I said no.

So, if the Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission is very active, most of the problems in the country today will be minimized. Some wouldn’t have come up in the first instance.

Even the issue of the N20 billion that was alleged to be missing during the crises between former Central Bank Governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi and President Goodluck Jonathan wouldn’t have even arisen. To be honest with you, the commission ought to be held responsible for some of the wrongs going on in the country.

They have the task of mobilizing and allocating funds and yet we don’t see them doing it.

At a point you were appointed the Chairman of the supervisory board of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) by former President Goodluck Jonathan. How did things go when you were there?

When I was called upon to become the chairman of the supervisory board of TCN, the first thing I told Jonathan was that they must be serious. He agreed that they will be serious.

But I realized that the whole thing is not serious because they were talking about 4000 megawatts for the whole nation of over 160 million people at the rate of $16 billion. Funnily, they were even proud of it. Can you compare that to what South Africa or other small countries that are not up to our population generate? I just felt that there was no seriousness in the whole thing.

There is the perceived prospect of finding oil in the North presently, do you think that is likely to happen?

I don’t think that is likely because there are no resources to do it. Even the currents pipes that we have cannot be maintained and they are daily being interfered with and vandalized. So if we cannot maintain the current pipes, how can we be talking about galvanizing efforts and resources to finding oil in the North?