The first minister of Petroleum Resources in the first republic, elder statesman and permanent representative in the United Nation, Alhaji Yusuf Maitama Sule has said that he had no oil well even as the first minister of Petroleum Resources for seven years.
“I did not allocate myself a single oil well, not even a drum of kerosene,” Maitama Sule said.
The elder statesman stated that Nigeria was a decent country back then with its leaders ready to serve not to be served, citing the experience of the emergence of oil economy where he had to travel to Italy to solicit for the Italian based oil exploration company to come to Nigeria and compete with the Seven sisters oil giant companies.
According to him, that singular effort has fetched the nation a great deal of economic prosperity with the establishment of Agip oil and himself established and commissioned the first oil refinery in Nigeria in Port Harcourt.
He lamented that allocating oil wells to individuals marked the beginning of corruption in government and led the nation to a life of embezzlement and squandering of state resources.
Maitama Sule made all these known when the Chairman, Senate Committee on Foreign and Domestic debt, Vice Chairman Foreign Affairs Committee, Senator representing Kaduna Central, Senator Shehu Sani paid a courtesy call on him at his residence in Nassarawa GRA, Dawaki road, Kano State, yesterday.
The Senator however said that the visit was aimed at recognising the contributions an elder statesman gave out in developing the nation and at this critical time, offer suggestions and solutions on how best the country could be governed and get out of the economic recession among other thorny issues holding the country back from becoming the bigger nation among economic super power States.
In his continues response, Maitama Sule urged politicians to learn to respect one another and desist from the campaigns of calumny and disrespect to elderly and constituted authorities.
He added that the parliamentarians must try to think of Nigeria, build Nigeria, cooperate with one another and as God created the nation together, no one should put asunder, adding that God wants Nigerians to play the role of leadership in the continent, that’s why he brought them together with all their differences.
He said, Dan Masani noted that tribalism and religion shouldn’t be a barrier to national unity “Oh, yee people, God has created you male and female so that you understand one another, not to quarrel or fight with one another”, according him the quotation was boldly written at the premise of the United Nation.
He further explained that if all human are same and equal, nobody would want to know about another and there begins the quest for understanding of one another which is the ingredient of life, “out of human inquisitiveness, understanding of one another begins”, his call.
