The Big Thing in Town: The president earlier today on television while having a media chat on NTA.

Here are the highlights of the chat...

1. Buhari reveals that the Nigerian airforce is virtually non-existent. He said the airforce needs to support ground troops.

2. He said our security challenge is not only in the Northeast, but also in the Gulf of Guinea where our crude oil is stolen through. He said the amount of crude oil being stolen is mind-boggling.

3. Buhari explained that up to the 10th of this month, our crude oil was being stolen by people in government. “We’re getting documents and support to trace it all. I doubt the NNPC knows the total number of accounts being operated. Nigerians will be shocked by how much has been stolen.”

4. He said it’s not an easy process to recover stolen funds deposited abroad by unpatriotic citizens, but that his government will do its best.

5. He said fuel scarcity is due to non-maintenance of local refineries. “We’ll be on a high moral ground when we restructure NNPC. All our refining and pipeline infrastructure across the country have almost all been vandalised, can’t be fixed overnight.”

6. He revealed that virtually all storage infrastructure owned by government have been vandalised and Nigeria is now forced to import petroleum products. “We have to work with our partners to fix the infrastructure in the oil sector. But we are open to give licenses to people.”

7. “Concerning appointment of ministers, we need honest, patriotic and knowledgeable Nigerians to handle ministries. There is no point to give some people license to go to international market and buy produce.”

8. “Before now, ministers have been working for themselves in an everybody for himself, God for us all atmosphere of corruption. Appointments are taking time because a number of knowledgeable people have been compromised. We cannot trust compromised people to run our ministries or we will be back to square one.”

9. “We (APC) cannot win the battle and lose the war. We cannot allow the PDP to take over the government through the Nat. Assembly. The only thing I can do is to appeal to the conscience of APC members in the House and the Senate to not scuttle our plans.”

10. “It took us a while to get to where we (APC) are. The vicious cycle of corruption, unemployment and insecurity has to be broken. Let us put our hands together to save this country. No part of the country can do much on its own. Nigeria is one and has come to stay.”