Most speeches and off-hand remarks (interviews) delivered by President Muhammadu Buhari since 2016 have followed a pattern of lamentation of how the Crude Oil prices dropped from an average of $100 per barrel between 1999 and 2014 to an average of $54 per barrel, thus creating untold cash-stripe situation for the economy, with very lean resources for his administration. The president, in an interview aired by Channels TV in 2018, said Nigeria’s crude oil production from 1999 to 2014 averaged 2.1 million barrels per day at an average price of $100 per barrel.
The program anchor, Mr Seun Okinbaloye had asked the president: “Did you envisage the enormity of the task when you promised to tackle insecurity as the president and commander in chief of our country?” President Buhari answered “I challenge so many of you to go and check with the central bank or NNPC; the production from 1999 to 2014 was 2.1 million barrels per day average production at the average cost of $100 per barrel,” this was his response to Channel’s Seun Okinbaloye.
In 2021, speaking to Arise TV journalists who had pressed him on his government’s poor performance, again, Mr Buhari said: “I would like you to check how much we were earning from 1999 to 2014. From 1999 to 2014, our production (if you check you will find out that) average production was 2.1 million barrels per day and the cost of crude during that period was 100 American dollars per barrel. So, from 1999 to 2014, we were earning 2.1 million times 100 dollar per day.”
The president’s claim, which he has repeated several times in the past, has been fact-checked by THE DAILY SENTINEL NEWS and found to be untrue and indeed out of touch with reality. Please see the table below.
| Year | Average Closing Price |
Year Open | Year High | Year Low | Year Close | Annual % Change |
| 2022 | $99.91 | $76.08 | $123.70 | $76.08 | $119.41 | 58.77% |
| 2021 | $68.17 | $47.62 | $84.65 | $47.62 | $75.21 | 55.01% |
| 2020 | $39.68 | $61.17 | $63.27 | $11.26 | $48.52 | -20.64% |
| 2019 | $56.99 | $46.31 | $66.24 | $46.31 | $61.14 | 35.42% |
| 2018 | $65.23 | $60.37 | $77.41 | $44.48 | $45.15 | -25.32% |
| 2017 | $50.80 | $52.36 | $60.46 | $42.48 | $60.46 | 12.48% |
| 2016 | $43.29 | $36.81 | $54.01 | $26.19 | $53.75 | 44.76% |
| 2015 | $48.66 | $52.72 | $61.36 | $34.55 | $37.13 | -30.53% |
| 2014 | $93.17 | $95.14 | $107.95 | $53.45 | $53.45 | -45.55% |
| 2013 | $97.98 | $93.14 | $110.62 | $86.65 | $98.17 | 6.90% |
| 2012 | $94.05 | $102.96 | $109.39 | $77.72 | $91.83 | -7.08% |
| 2011 | $94.88 | $91.59 | $113.39 | $75.40 | $98.83 | 8.15% |
| 2010 | $79.48 | $81.52 | $91.48 | $64.78 | $91.38 | 15.10% |
| 2009 | $61.95 | $46.17 | $81.03 | $34.03 | $79.39 | 78.00% |
| 2008 | $99.67 | $99.64 | $145.31 | $30.28 | $44.60 | -53.52% |
| 2007 | $72.34 | $60.77 | $99.16 | $50.51 | $95.95 | 57.68% |
| 2006 | $66.05 | $63.11 | $77.05 | $55.90 | $60.85 | -0.34% |
| 2005 | $56.64 | $42.16 | $69.91 | $42.16 | $61.06 | 40.82% |
| 2004 | $41.51 | $33.71 | $56.37 | $32.49 | $43.36 | 33.37% |
| 2003 | $31.08 | $31.97 | $37.96 | $25.25 | $32.51 | 4.17% |
| 2002 | $26.19 | $21.13 | $32.68 | $18.02 | $31.21 | 56.36% |
| 2001 | $25.98 | $27.29 | $32.21 | $17.50 | $19.96 | -25.30% |
| 2000 | $30.38 | $25.56 | $37.22 | $23.91 | $26.72 | 3.73% |
| 1999 | $19.35 | $12.42 | $28.03 | $11.38 | $25.76 | 112.19% |
Source: OPEC Brent Crude Price Statistics
The average closing price for crude for the period 1999 – 2006 was below $67.0 Dollars per barrel. It was as low as $19.0Dollars per barrel in 1999, $25.98 Dollars in 2001 and $26.19 Dollars in 2002.
In the first five months of 2022, Crude Oil price has hovered around $100 and $119 Dollars per barrel, yet the citizenry are worse off for it. With the abject bereavement of ideas on how to fix even one of the nation’s four Refineries, the implication is that whatever gains recorded on account of increase in crude prices are lost several folds to the cost of imported refined petroleum products through an opaque oil subsidy regime. As at the first five months of this year, the country has already spent the projected total inflow for the year on fuel subsidy.
The net effect of this state of affairs is the resort unguarded external borrowing without caution by the Federal Government. The Government hopes to push its public debt stock to N50.22tn by 2023, with domestic debt at N28.75tn and external debt at N21.47tn. This is according to the projections in the National Development Plan 2021-2025.
The Debt Management Office had disclosed that Nigeria’s public debt was N38tn as of the end of the third quarter of 2021, with the total debt stock rising by N2.540tn in three months from July to September 2021. From the foregoing, it is obvious that the regime of President Muhammadu Buhari plans to accumulate additional N12tn debt within two years from 2021 to 2023. More like a Banana peel for the incoming administration.
The performance of the present APC led government of President Muhammadu Buhari has been exceedingly woeful in the management of the economy and in the fight against insecurity. The administration’s fight against insecurity has been described by some observers as nothing but a friendly exchange of banters between old buddies.
