The former Commissioner for Information, Culture and Tourism and chieftain of the All Progressives Congress in Niger State, Mr. Jonathan Vatsa, has noted that the decision to commercialize the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), by President Muhammadu Buhari has vindicated former Vice President and People Democratic Party (PDP) Presidential Candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.
He stated that in 2019, during the campaign, Atiku had told Nigerians that the NNPC needed to be sold out because it was no longer serving its purpose.
Reacting to the development in Minna, Vatsa said Atiku’s position then about the moribund corporation was later used against him, thereby making Nigerians to believe that he was going to sell the industry to himself, friends or associates.
He argued, “Eventually, what Atiku said that was used against him in 2019 has come to pass. What we are seeing today, NNPC has been sold out and the government did not tell Nigerians who are the 200 million shareholders in the new Nigerian National Company Limited.”
The former Publicity Secretary of the state APC insisted that selling NNPC is a minus for President Buhari’s administration for its inability to fix any of the four refineries in the country.
According to him, “Rather than making them work, we decided to settle for an imported refined petroleum product and paying heavy subsidy which we initially told Nigerians was a fraud.
“Not only the NNPC that needs to be sold out, all the refineries in this country should be sold out to individuals for efficiency and productivity so that the government can stop spending billions of naira paying salaries of redundant staff and maintaining non-functional refineries in this country.”