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I felt Nigeria didn't have to succumb to the image of being a corrupt country; we didn't have to let the economy stagnate.

We campaigned on the fact that we were going to have to take difficult decisions because of the state of the public finances. When we got into government we discovered that actually the public finances were in an even worse state than we thought.

Our choice of a reform framework dictated that we looked at the fundamental assumptions that had driven Nigeria's economy, society and policy hitherto and to seek ways of either abandoning or transcending those assumptions and their supporting institutions.

Nigeria has had the misfortune - no, the fortune - of seeing the worst face of capitalism anywhere in Africa. The masses have seen it, they are disgusted, and they want an alternative.

We developed during the 1990s a series of budget process rules that helped us bring to heel these deficits, diminishing every year and moving the budget so into surplus.

When a nation is over-reliant on one or two commodities like oil or precious minerals, corrupt government ministers and their dodgy associates hoard profits and taxes instead of properly allocating them to schools and hospitals.

I am convinced that Nigeria would have been a more highly developed country without the oil. I wished we'd never smelled the fumes of petroleum.

When you have a country that's been accustomed to government spending at a certain level, it is really hard to ratchet it back.

When you talk about the oil wealth you compare nations. There are some nations with less than five million people. Nigeria has 150 million people. I cannot say that all the money earned from oil since 1958, when the first drop of oil was exported from this country to date, that the money has been effectively used.

No one can fight corruption for Nigerians except Nigerians. Everyone has to be committed from the top to the bottom to fight it.