Given the fall in price of crude oil to below $40 per barrel in the global market, which has continued to deplete the nation’s revenue, the governors of the 36 states would have been in terrible financial mess and trouble, if not for the financial prudence of President Muhammadu Buhari, the Governor of Borno State, Kashim Shettima, has said. The governor, according to a statement issued by his media aide, Isa Gusau, disclosed this in Kano at a wedding reception also attended by Governors of Kano, Kebbi, Niger, Imo, Katsina and Gombe States at the Government House. It was at the wedding ceremony, where the Jigawa State Governor, Alhaji Muhammad Badaru Abubakar gave out his daughter, Amina in marriage to Lawan Dahiru Mangal at a Fatiha held at Umar bn Khattab Mosque in Kano.
He said: “When the price of crude oil was over $100 per barrel, Borno State was receiving about N4.5 billion monthly. Today, oil price has grossly fallen to less than $40 per barrel, which represents about 80 per cent fall. Oil is the country’s main source of revenue and ordinarily, state such as Borno should have received 20 per cent of what we were receiving when oil was over $100. This month, we received N2.6 billion at a time oil is below $40 and this is more than 50 per cent of what we were receiving at a time oil was over $100.
“The state’s salary wage is N2.6 billion, but we still have to be grateful to President Buhari because if not for his financial discipline, all of us here would be in soup by now. I am not here to play politics; I respect the fact that we are a mixture of people with different political affiliations. Our brother, the Governor of Gombe State is in PDP, so I am not playing politics.”
