Why It Is Taking Me So Long to Appoint Ministers - Buhari
President Muhammadu Buhari
Tobi Soniyi in Abuja
President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday said that it is taking him a longer time to appoint ministers because he does not want to appoint people who have been compromised.
Speaking on the Nigerian Television Authority's programme: Good Morning Nigeria, Buhari said that if compromised people were appointed as ministers, "then we will be back to square one and Nigeria will be the loser".
He added: "It is taking so much time because a number of knowledgeable people have been compromised.
"They have been compromised by people who will like to depend on them to damage our economy and security, a lot of them have been compromised.
"The worst thing that I think can happen is to get a compromised person to be in charge of institutions. There is no way he could be efficient or patriotic. Somebody behind the scene will be tele-guiding him at the expense of the nation.
"This is what we are trying to avoid and I assure you that so much damage has been done to Nigeria. We cannot rush to give this responsibility to people that have unfortunately been compromised."
He said the country needed very patriotic, knowledgeable, experienced and committed Nigerians, who could work very hard to be in charge of ministries.
According to him, ”A lot of institutions in Nigeria are compromised; (it is) everybody for himself and God for all of us.”
He described this as most unfortunate.
He lamented that even though Nigeria had people, educated and experienced people, but many of them, he reegreeted to say, had been compromised.
He said: "It is everybody seems to be working for himself on how much they could get away with as soon as possible.
"We have to look for technocrats and politicians. We have to look out for decent people in this class to give them the responsibility of being in charge of ministries and important parastatals.
"We will try as mush as possible to avoid appointing hostages; by this, I mean people who have been in the system but compromised their personal and professional integrity.
"Because there is no way you can effectively supervise, let's say 20 ministries, you have to give it to people you trust and you allow them to perform according to the constitution of the country."
The president said that theft of crude of oil continued after ge took office in May 29 saying that up to July 10th, crude oil was still illegally lifted by people in government.
He said the United States of America and other countries that were destination for crude oil stolen in Nigeria had pledged their readiness to help with the tracing of the proceeds from the stolen crude oil.
The president said however, the countries insisted on following due process of the law and had advised Nigeria to get all the relevant documents for them before they could help.
He said: "For us to get the help of the developed countries, we have to get our fact: documents, complete and reliable investigation, take them to court and get these people prosecuted.
"Meanwhile, the theft continues. Up to the 10th of this month, our crude is still being illegally lifted by people who are in government.
"We are trying to get these documents , we are getting cooperation from the international community. We are going very soon to make sure that those who perpetrated this crime against Nigeria will be faced with facts and be taken to our courts.
"We have got the cooperation of some of the countries that are the destinations of our crude and we are discussing with them. We have to maintain high confidentiality so that we don't risk some of the people in Nigeria that are helping us to trace the destinations of this stolen crude and then the accounts where the proceeds are being paid instead of the Federal Government account.
"I don't think the NNPC knows how many accounts are there in which payments are made on Nigerian crude.
"The monumental fraud has been going on for a number of years, a lot of Nigerians cannot comprehend it."
Continuing, the president said western countries were willing to help but insisted that the process must comply with their own system.”
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