By Sunday Isuwa, Abuja
The Tinubu Shettima Network (TSN),
has attacked the Conference of Nigeria Political Parties (CNPP) for calling on President Muhammadu Buhari to purge the National Nigerian Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) of an alleged corrupt management team.
According to the National Coordinator, Kailani Muhammad, the CNPP comment on the NNPCL is a ‘Cheap blackmail’.
According to Muhammad, the major issues of fuel scarcity and failure to meet up with OPEC quota advanced by CNPP in a recent press statement were nothing, but a clear attempt to, “give a dog a bad name in order to hang it”.
“We expected CNPP to blame the OPEC quota on oil thieves and the recent fuel scarcity on marketers rather than NNPCL. Is it NNPC staff that are stealing oil? It is a cartel and the security agencies and politicians are involved and this has been happening since 1983 in this country?” Muhammad asked.
The group Coordinator, who applauded President Muhammadu Buhari for setting up a 14-man Steering Committee to find lasting solutions to the problems surrounding the supply and distribution chain of petroleum products in the country, said, “I don’t think there is any corruption in the newly incorporated NNPCL, because since the repositioning, nobody or leader can deep hands in NNPC’s coffers to steal money, because there are laws guiding the company now unlike before ,when a president can just write and siphon money.
Kailani Muhammad, who spoke in a reaction to a recent statement signed by CNPP Secretary General, Chief Willy Ezugwu explained,” It beats our imagination for a group to condemn the current management that has been doing a lot ,most especially the Group Managing Director, Mele Kyari, who works round-the-clock to ensure optimum operations are guaranteed.
In a press statement signed and made available to journalists, Kailani who was the National Coordinator of Muhammadu Buhari Votes Guard before it metamorphosed into Tinubu Shettima Network posited, ”These so called comrades of CNPP and their allies have no just reasons to accuse management of Mele Kyari led team of corruption .
According to him, “it is more disheartening that they don’t even have figures to back up their allegations of corruption against the management.
“We expect members of CNPP to know that under the previous government, NNPC was more of a cash cow for years than National oil company, until President Muhammadu Buhari’s government repositioned it.
“NNPC is now an independent company, which was established by CAMA and the Petroleum Industry Act that passed by NASS and signed by the President .
“As an independent company now, it needs to generate money for Nigeria for proper investment and open up the system for business individuals willing to invest in the Oil sector to do so with ease.
“Today NNPCL can pay taxes and royalty to the government,which it has been doing . If the CNPP and its allies don’t have anything to do, they should shut up and support this government to ensure that dividends of democracy are delivered to the people.”
While claiming that CNPP is being sponsored by PDP to castigate and denigrate Buhari’s government, Kailani expressed strong belief they will fail, just as he called on them to desist from negative insinuations and leave NNPCL alone.
However, he said,” All those enemies,who think Nigeria is their heritage and have failed to leave the political scene for better tomorrow are doomed to fail .
“We know they want the government to fail because, they don’t believe in President Muhammadu Buhari’s government
“There is nothing wrong, when a leader does well, he deserves commendation and where anything wrong is observed rather than unnecessary criticism, suggest ideas objectively.
“I saw CNPP as the group of enemies of this government , who don’t even want Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu to win the election.
On the issue of meeting up with OPEC quota , Kailani spoke on measures adopted by Kyari’s led Management team to tackle oil theft cases.
He said, The government in its wisdom allowed the NNPCL to engage Tompolo ,when crude Oil production output dropped from 1.8 to 900 and later to even almost 100 barrels per day.
“After the engagement of Tompolo ,we are now producing optimally and maybe in the next few months ,we can meet up with our OPEC quota, because he has done well to make sure that all the taps on the pipelines are no more and checkmating the thieves in the creeks. This is a feat that we need to give kudos to the government and NNPC instead of criticising them.
“NNPCL has been intervening on the issue of bad roads to ensure that our major roads are either rehabilitated or reconstructed. It’s doing this to make sure that it supplements the government’s efforts,where the government is yet to do something for the benefits of Nigerians .
“That NNPC has intervened on matters of roads; hospitals and even during COVID-19 is no doubt a good omen that should be commended, especially the president Muhammadu Buhari’s government, which has been doing tremendously well in the areas of infrastructure, security and repositioning the NNPCL”.