By Johnbosco Agbakwuru

ABUJA—SENIOR Staff Association of Nigerian Universities, SSANU, weekend,  called on President Muhammadu Buhari to revoke all oil licences allocated to individuals without the competence to manage such oil wells but had made themselves richer than the country.

Buhari

The association also told the president to show he was not selective in the war against corruption by extending the probe in recovering looted funds to the former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration of 1999.

President of SSANU, Samson Ugwoke in his address at the National Executive Council meeting/Pre-National Delegate Conference in Jos, Plateau State,  said the association was in total support with President Buhari on the ongoing fight against corruption.

Ugwoke said, “The present  administration seems to be pursuing anti-corruption war. Corruption has killed this country. We have heard of billions and trillions of Naira being looted by officers of government and all of them stashed abroad, not even in our country.

“They use Nigerian money to grow and improve the economy of other countries, leaving us in poverty. SSANU supports the fight against corruption but with a caveat, Mr. President should pursue whoever has stolen our money to return it to our coffers.

“The probe of the looters should not be selective, it should be total, that is the position of SSANU. It should be total and be extended to 1999, so that those who have killed this country since 1999 should be brought to book.”

The SSANU president lamented that some individuals in the country had  become richer than the country, stressing that it was only in Nigeria that such an abnormality had been allowed to persist for a long time.

According to Ugwoke: “This is a country where an individual is richer than a country and he made his money from the country.

“We are endowed with oil wells  and these oil wells were given to individuals who do not have the capacity, even in oil technology or in business or economics, but they were given to them because of their positions in federal government, because of their positions in the society.

“They have packed trillions of dollars into their own pockets, giving the country nothing. The position of SSANU is that government should revoke all oil well licences and set up a committee to recover the oil wells.

“A Commission should be in-charge of Nigeria’s oil wells, all money generated from the oil wells should be channeled into the treasury of the Federal Government so that the country will be rich. Rich from the resources of the country, not an individual being richer than the country because he owns an oil well.

“The Constitution states that the minerals of the country belong to the state, they do not belong to an individual. It is only in this country that individuals own the resources of a country.

“So the position of SSANU is that, a commission should be established for the oil wells  of this country so that the revenue from the oil from A to Z should  accrue to the Federal Government into the Central Bank Single Account.”

While commending the Vice Chancellor of University of Jos, Prof. Hayward Mafuyai for creating the enabling environment between the management and staff as well as the massive infrastructure development going on in the university, Ugwoke, however, noted that “there cannot be good development in the university without commensurate staff welfare.”