Jonathan's Oil Revenue As Much As Yaradua, Obj, Abdusalami & Abacha Combined
Nigeria's total crude oil sales was $470B in 5 years of Pre. Jonathan's administration and $489B for Yaradua+Obasanjo+Abdusalami+Abacha administrations combined, in unadjusted numbers. Adjusted for inflation, the numbers are $488.8B vs. $594B for Jonathan vs. Yaradua+Obj+Abdusalami+Abacha combined BY OBINNA DURU.


Nigerians going into the 2015 elections, are we asking the right QUESTIONS? Are we demanding appropriate accountability from past and current leaders commensurate with the quantum of resources at their disposal? I dug out some numbers recently to do a more representative (apple-to-apple) analysis of the performance of past and present Nigerian administrations. My data sources are (1) The Nigerian Central Bank, (2) the US EAI, (3) OPEC and (4) Other online data sources. Take a close at the charts I generated from the data and let's start demanding real answers!

To arrive at these numbers, I took average monthly production - very fine data resolution, and calculated how much dollars volumes we sold each year. For adjustment for inflation, I used 2.5% annual $ inflation rate. To put inflation adjustment in perspective, $1.00 in 1999 is equivalent to $1.44 in 2014. In just 5 years, Jonathan's administration has generated as much crude oil sales as all 16 years of Yaradua, Obasanjo, Abdusalami and Abacha's administrations combined in unadjusted numbers. This comes to $470B vs $489B in unadjusted numbers. When adjusted for inflation, the numbers are $488.8B vs. $594B for Jonathan vs. Yaradua+Obj+Abdusalami+Abacha combined. The numbers are what they are because oil price has risen almost 7-8 folds during this period, nearly an order of magnitude increase. In addition to price increase, Nigeria's crude oil output has also increased. I am hoping we can start asking tough questions, we'd continue to be hoodwinked. My question again is simple: even with 2.5% annual inflation adjustment, the numbers are $488.8b vs $594b. Does the investment in Nigeria in the past 5 years add up to ~$500B.