By Emeka Okoroanyanwu
Atiku Abubakar, Nigeria’s former Vice President is not allowing the issue of subsidy payments and Oando plc acquiring Agip Oil plc to be swept under the carpet. At least not for now.
The former Vice president, therefore, wants the Federal Government to explain why Oando Plc owned by President Ahmed Tinubu’s nephew, Wale, got an express approval to buy the onshore assets of AGIP and ENI while other transactions such as the Shell/Renaissance and the Mobil/Seplat deals continue to be stalled.
The former Vice President also criticised the Bola Tinubu administration for implementing a sham subsidy regime as revealed in the financial statement recently released by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL).
In a statement signed by Phrank Shaibu, Atiku’s Special Assistant on Public Communication, the Vice President revealed that President Tinubu lied to the world in New York, Qatar and France about removing petrol subsidies, saying with such lies, the President was not serious about attracting Foreign Direct Investments.
More worrisome, he said, was that Tinubu was not even brave enough to admit that subsidy is currently being paid.
He said that the NNPCL has admitted that N7.8tn is owed to the national oil company by the Nigerian government.
Atiku said: “IMF estimates that subsidy payments this year will constitute 3% of GDP, which is about $7.5bn. This will be about N11.8tn. ‘Yet, the petrol scarcity continues to linger while the Tinubu administration continues to frustrate the Dangote Refinery and even its own NNPCL facilities. “Obviously, the subsidy regime has become an even wider conduit pipe through which monies for funding the 2027 election will come from”
The former Vice President repeated his allegation that Oando was being given undue and preferential treatment in the oil and gas sector to the detriment of more competent investors.
He also lampooned the House of Representatives for failing to take proper action on the NNPCL which has now gone ahead to “mortgage the country’s national oil assets to vested interests”.
The former Vice president said, “Within just eight months, the Nigerian Upstream Production Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) approved a deal which saw the divestment of ENI/AGIP onshore assets to Oando. Within that same period, Nigeria controversially withdrew all litigation against Shell/ENI in the OPL 245 scandal in what has been described as a quid pro quo.
He said that attempt by SEPLAT to buy Mobil’s onshore assets has continued to stall for the last three years even as the consent letter remains on Tinubu’s table.
The deal between Renaissance and Shell continues to stall, he lamented.
“In fact, the only deal that has fully scaled through so far is the one involving Oando. We now know why it got accelerated approval,” he noted.
Ideally, he said, democracy ought to be government of the people, for the people, and by the people, but that democracy in Nigeria has become the government of Tinubu, by Tinubu, and for Tinubu and his family members.
Atiku disclosed that in July 2023, the House of Representatives, following the adoption of a motion moved by Miriam Onuoha directed NNPC Ltd to suspend the acquisition of OVH assets pending an investigation by its Committee while the House ad-hoc committee requested the NNPC Ltd to furnish it with information about registration documents/history from CAC for OVH, Nueoil, and NNPC Retail Limited (NRL), Board Resolution of NNPC Ltd on purchase of OVH, Audited Financial Statement and Management Accounts from 2015 to date of OVH, Nueoil, NRL and NNPC Ltd and the payroll from 2015 to date for NRL and OVH; Board Resolution of NRL/CHQ for movement of head office to Lagos and evidence of Tax Payments for NRL and OVH from 2015 to date.
The NNPC, he decried, ignored all these and went ahead to transfer its ownership and properties in its retail arm to OVH, thereby mortgaging the future of Nigerians.
“Despite the rot in the oil sector, the head of the NNPC, the head of the NUPRC, and the head of the NMDPRA continue to keep their jobs. This is clear evidence that they are fulfilling the mandate given to them by Tinubu,” the former Vice president said.
Atiku also pointed out that the NNPC lied in its vacuous response to their statement last week, as it is on record that the Kyari-led management appointed Huub Stoksman, a former Chief Executive Officer of OVH Energy, as Managing Director of NNPC Retail, and Mumuni Dangazau, the former Chief Operating Officer of OVH Energy, as his Special Adviser Downstream, long before the consummation of the incestuous marriage of the entities.
