NNPC: Atiku adamant on selling NNPC, silent on ‘friends’

Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party on Wednesday in Kaduna reiterated his plan to privatise the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), if elected president on Feb 23.

However, he no longer said he would sell to his friends.

Abubakar spoke at a town hall meeting with ward, local government and state party leaders in the state at the Kaduna Trade Fair Complex.

He said that the NNPC had failed to serve the purpose for which it was established in 1977.

According to him, selling-off the Corporation and all the three refineries is the best option for the country, likening it to the sale of Nigerian Telecommunication Limited (NITEL).

Abubakar said Nigeria is among the biggest producers of crude, but lamented that the country still imports refined products for local consumption at exorbitant prices to the detriment of the common man.

He said, if elected President, he would deregulate the NNPC and sell it to Nigerians, the way Obasanjo sold NITEL.

However, he forgot to mention that the sale of NITEL was disastrously done by the administration, of which he was a part and chairman of Bureau of Public Enterprises, which handled the sale.

Under Obasanjo, NITEL went through several botched sales and management turnaround contracts.

First, 51 per cent of the shares were sold to a group of investors under the trading name of Investors International London limited.

The sale was cancelled after the investors failed to pay.

Then in 2003, the government approved a management turnaround contract with a firm called Pentascope.

The contract was cancelled in 2005 after it became clear Pentascope did not have the adequate resources to run NITEL.

In 2005, government again offered NITEL to Orascom.

This failed again, leading the government to sell it to a subsidiary of Transcorp in 2007.

The sale was revoked in 2009.

In 2014, the firm was sold to NATCOM, a group of investors led by Tunde Ayeni.

Ayeni since then has been running it as NTEL.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that former Vice President, Alhaji Namadi Sambo, former National chairman of the party, Alhaji Ahmed Makarfi, former governors Ramalan Yero of Kaduna and Ibrahim Shema of Katsina were among top party leaders that attended the event.