President Bola Tinubu has been urged to institute a probe panel or order an independent investigation similar to what Jim Obazee did in the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to unravel the ceaseless claims and counter claims of mind boggling corruption in the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited under its current Group Managing Director, Mr. Mele Kyari.
In July 2023, Tinubu appointed Obazee, former chief executive officer (CEO) of the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria (FRCN), as a special investigator.
And by December 22, 2023, Obazee’s team submitted a report, titled, ‘Report of the Special Investigation on CBN and Related Entities (Chargeable offences)’, to President Bola Tinubu — revealing fraudulent activities and malfeasance in Nigeria’s apex bank.
On Thursday morning, a Lagos-based “Integrity Group” under the leadership of Comrade Korede Adigun demanded probe into the alleged corruption in the NNPCL under Kyari.
According to Adigun in a press release to journalists, “Nigerians are suffering in the midst of plenty. Our oil boom has become a doom for all and sundry. We can no longer understand why queues persist in filling stations as prices soar by the day.
“ Amid the scarcity, black marketers have taken advantage of the situation, selling petrol at prices ranging from N1,200 to N1,500 per litre, depending on the location.
“Despite assurances from the NNPC that efforts are underway to address distribution and logistics challenges, the scarcity persists, leading to widespread frustration,” Adigun lamented as he called on the President Tinubu to immediately halt this ugly trend, hence suffering masses may launch another nationwide protest that could grind the economy further.
He said queues disappeared under Maikanti Baru leadership of the NNPC and sanity was all over the filling stations until the current leadership under Mele Kyari came on board.
“The then GMD Baru met it and ensured queues no longer surfaced throughout the time he spent in office. But since Kyari took over from Baru, the alleged corruption in NNPC is said to be mind boggling.
“Why is it difficult for President Tinubu to order for probe of NNPC like he did in CBN under Emefiele?
“Is it true that some big goons in the Board of the NNPCL who are close to President Tinubu like Chief Pius Akinyelure and few others are the ones protecting Kyari from losing his job despite public outcry?
“Enough is enough. Why is it difficult to remove Kyari with sufferings everywhere nationwide with fuel selling far above N1,000 per litre in many filling stations.
“Under Maikanti Baru, there was no serious issues of queues but what do we have now? The failure in leadership of the NNPCL calls for concern and therefore the president should immediately arrest this ugly trend and save the nation from ongoing malady, corruption, malfeasance and failure in leadership,” Adigun added.
The position of the group came on the heels of the comments made by Adetilewa Adebajo, the Chief Executive Officer of the CFG Advisory on Arise Television calling on both the Ministry of Finance and the CBN to step up supervisory roles on the NNPCL.
According to Adebajo, “If you take a look at the current issue with the NNPCL, the current liability exceeds the current assets, so basically they’ve liquidity issue, despite saying they have N7trillion; there is that contradiction there.
“The problem is “we need to restructure NNPCL balance sheet. NNPCL assets under utilized. The Ministry of Finance and CBN need to put in place more overnight functions. The issue of Zero revenue from the Refineries and lack of Corporate governance issue in NNPCL must be addressed.
The way forward is for the Ministry of Finance which is the owner of NNPC to take oversight function on the company more seriously.
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