Former Bauchi State governor, Mallam Isa Yuguda, has leapt to the defence of the federal government in its buying of golds from Zamfara State government.

The federal government through the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, recently commenced the purchase of golds from Zamfara government to the distaste of people from the South-south.

They said the arrangement was unfair given that such deal was not applicable to oil mined in their region, which proceeds are being shared by the entire country and went on to accuse the federal government under President Muhammadu Buhari of double standard.

 Yuguda, who decamped to the All Progressives Congress, APC, from the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, said the Zamfara and federal governments’ deal was a right step in the right direction in an interview with The Sun.

Excerpt:

The oil in the South-south is under the control of the Federal Government, but in Zamfara State, we see gold miners selling to the Federal Government. Does this apply in your case?

Nigeria must as a matter of necessity build up its gold reserves as other countries are doing, as very soon, the world will go back to the gold standard in determining value of a currency and strength of the economy of a country. It is also envisaged that reserves of a country will be in gold not dollar. With this development, Nigeria must amass gold in anticipation of the return to gold standard. China, for instance, has been amassing gold in the past 15 years,  giving the increasing threat of the dollar as an international currency and a reserves currency. Nigerian must start realizing that soon, water will be cheaper than oil, especially if there is no consensus among oil producers, especially Saudi Arabia and Russia. Not only that, America was a major oil importer, but it is exporting and producing oil through fracking. Many more discoveries are made everyday. It, therefore, makes no sense for the government of Nigeria to buy oil as a substitute to gold. We can’t amass oil to substitute gold when eventually the gold standard replaces the dollar standard. Oil is a depleting asset, while gold isn’t. We must stop being sentimental when it comes to our national interest. If the Federal Government can bring in joint venture partners to mine the gold with state-of-the-art technology as it does for the oil industry, the better for Zamfara State as its derivation revenues may be higher than that of Akwa Ibom State or Delta State. Just as the Federal  Government invested our national resources in discovering and mining oil, they should have done that for all our mineral resources. Playing politics with the future of our country is spelling doom for Nigeria. In my case, once I start exporting, the profits will be in a domiciliary account which will improve our foreign reserves. It is almost the same as is in the case of oil revenues.