IN 1989, the then Minister of Petroleum Resources, Professor Jibril Aminu, displeased at the virtual lack of Nigerian presence in the upstream sector of the oil industry, invited a number of wealthy Nigerians from all parts of the country to come forward and take oil prospecting licences.

IT was with utmost pride and satisfaction that we received the news that Nigeria ’s new Minister of Finance, Mr Olusegun Aganga, had been elected as the Chairman of the Board of the Bretton-Woods Institutes, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), after a keen contest.

New Minister of Finance, Mr. Olusegun Aganga, recently disclosed that the Excess Crude Account would soon be abolished to give way to the creation of a Sovereign Wealth Fund.

Part of the reorientation campaign should be focused on encouraging Nigerians to buy and use new products, especially those of good quality made in Nigeria. It is safer and cheaper in the long run. The encouragement of credit and hire purchase systems will help in no small measure.

The refusal to transmit the letter should have been viewed for what it was: a gross misconduct on the part of the president, punishable by removal from office through impeachment. Since the Constitution did not make the transmission of a letter optional, the president and his handlers should have known the grave effect of neglecting to write and forward that letter. And having failed to do so, the National Assembly should have followed the next logical prescription of the constitution by commencing an impeachment process.