According to the Governor Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State, he Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation has turned itself into a parallel government and so should be scrapped.
Kaduna State Governor, Nasir el-Rufai
Kaduna State Governor, Nasir el-Rufai, on Monday, July 13, kicked for the scrapping of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC.
According to him, the corporation has over the years constituted itself as a parallel government.
Speaking at this year’s Wole Soyinka Media Lecture series to mark the 81st birthday of Professor Wole Soyinka, in Abuja, yesterday, el-Rufai said the ‘death’ of NNPC, it would allow for the coming on board of a brand new company that would be commercialised and capitalized.
He added that the action has become imperative against the back drop that NNPC has over the years constituted itself as a parallel government, a country on its own, with Nigeria another country different from the corporation.
He said the account of the NNPC was last audited in 2005, and accused the NNPC of remitting only about 58 per cent of the money it earned between 2012 and the first half of 2015 to the federation account.
He said: “The long and short of the situation of our oil industry is best exemplified by the parallel government called the NNPC. In 2012, it sold N2.77 trillion worth of ‘domestic’ crude oil but paid only N1.66 trillion to the Federation Account.
“In 2013, it earned N2.66 trillion but paid N1.56 trillion to FAAC; in 2014, N2.64 trillion but remitted N1.44 trillion, while between January and May 2015, it earned N733.36 billion and remitted only N473.2 billion.
“That means that the NNPC only remitted about 58 per cent of the monies earned between 2012 and the first half of 2015. A company with the audacity to retain 42 per cent of a country’s money has become a veritable parallel republic.
“If we do not kill NNPC, NNPC will kill Nigeria. Any organization that takes 50 per cent of federation revenue for itself and gives you the change has no right to exist. It is evil, it must die, it is just the manner of the death that we must talk about.”