Although Nigeria rose to become the largest exporter of crude oil in the 70s, there appear to be little for the populace to boast about.
This rather unfortunate situation was best described by Swiss weekly "Die Weltwoche" editor, Daniel Ammann, in his book "The Secret Lives of Marc Rich, The King of Oil", as thus:
"The West African Nation (Nigeria) provides a good example of the sad phenomenon known as the "resource curse". The nation's immense oil riches never trickle down to benefit the wider population".
A situation he attributed then to the nation's history of coups, "after which the ruling elite would pillage the treasury and fill their coffers with the nation's wealth".
Nigeria's legendary corruption allegations on almost every exiting government or one out-stead by coup, must have prompted Transperancy International to rank her in 2014 as "the 136th most corrupt nation in the world, and 3rd in West Africa".
Latest developments in the Buhari/ Osibanjo's administration however suggests that there might be hope for Nigerians who never gave up in the fight, and believe that Nigeria will be liberated from "resource curse", when all who contributed to this stereotype would have been brought to book, and made to return that which they siphoned.
Peharps, it is in this line of thought that President Muhammadu Buhari stated on Wednesday, 22nd July, that he is currently receiving documents that indicted some top government officials and ministers in the Jonathan's administration, of oil theft and massive fraud.
According to the president, the documents in question exposed the activities of the affected government functionaries, who used their elevated offices to move as much as one million barrels of crude oil per day for their personal purposes.