When President Buhari assumed the post of Minister of Petroleum Resources, it was justified on the ground that as a former holder of that portfolio 40 years ago, he had the experience to sanitise the sector. During the regime of former President Goodluck Jonathan, over N6 trillion was spent on fuel imports between 2010 and 2015, with allegations of massive corruption trailing it.

We believe this arrangement is untidy and immoral. Public office is not a personal patrimony of anyone. We strongly believe that once an appointed occupant of a public office becomes ambitious to run for election, he or she should quit to devote full attention to the new pursuit.

NIGERIA is languishing at the bottom of best practices in most areas of human endeavours. These are grave indications that this country is being poorly run, and this has nothing to do with particular political parties or regimes. This country is sitting precariously on wrong foundations and truly needs restructuring and redirection.

We are even more puzzled that, according to Mustapha Yunusa Maihaja (the Director General of the National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA) the Agency paid a whopping N400 million in demurrage to clear the said rice valued at N414 million. Maihaja is also under the House Committee’s radar for allegedly awarding N1.6 billion contracts to non-existing companies.

Codeine has joined the ranks of other toxic drugs such as tramadol, the sniffing of glues and pit toilets, and queer admixtures of toxic substances (which in urban slang is referred to as “science student”) to create the picture of a drug abuse time-bomb waiting to explode.