The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Governors’ Forum has alleged that President Muhammadu Buhari’s headship of the Ministry of Petroleum Resources was responsible for revenue leakages in the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, (NNPC).
Consequently, the PDP governors have called for the immediate separation of the office of the president from that of the minister of petroleum resources.
The Forum, in a communiqué read by its Chairman, Governor Aminu Tambuwal, of Sokoto State, after its meeting in Aba, Abia State, last Wednesday, also called for an audit of daily consumption of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), a.k.a petrol, so as to determine the actual cost incurred on fuel subsidy.
The governors vowed to resist any further attempt by NNPC to ascribe unsubstantiated subsidy claims to other tiers of government.
According to the forum, “NNPC deducts N8.33billion monthly for the rehabilitation of the refineries; however, till date, no refinery is working.
“From available records, about N7.6trillion was withheld by the Corporation from the Federation Account between 2012 and 2021. All these are said to be payments for oil subsidy.
“Conclusively, we believe all these leakages in NNPC have been made possible because the president is also the minister of petroleum. The urgent separation of these two portfolios has become necessary”, it stated.
Similarly, they expressed concerns over the reported incidence of theft of crude oil ‘ranging from 80% to 95% of the production made by industry practitioners’, and called on the Federal Government to take appropriate measures to reverse the trend and bring perpetrators to book.
Furthermore, the PDP governors noted that the All Progressives Congress (APC) does not deserve to be on the ballot for the 2023 general election.
