Governor of Kaduna state, Nassir El-Rufai has said that he’s praying Nigeria’s oil dries up so that Nigerians will start using their brains.
He said this in Ibadan on Saturday, at the 2017 Town Hall Meeting/Founder’s Day celebration, in memory of renowned economist, Professor Ojetunji Aboyade.
He stated that the money coming from oil is a huge barrier to innovation as Nigeria has become over reliant on oil and have therefore refused to diversify.
“Because Nigeria gets easy money from oil, the nation has lost its thinking initiative on how to develop other sources of revenue and diversify the economy.
“We get easy money, we do not collect taxes and our taxes are six per cent of Gross Domestic Product; that is an average of 21 per cent. We stop respecting the intellectuals that we have in our universities because we get easy money.
He decried the over reliance on oil saying that intellect is no longer respected due to the easy money that oil brings.
“This is very sad, I wish the oil will dry up so that we can begin to use our brains because we have stopped using our brains and we have stopped respecting intellects because of easy money,” El-Rufai said.