The Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) has faulted the Kaduna State governor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, over his call for the scrapping of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
In a paper delivered during the seventh Prof. Wole Soyinka Birthday Lecture in Lagos, the Acting General Secretary of PENGASSAN, Comrade Lumumba Okugbawa, said instead of ‘killing the NNPC,’ the governor should have called for the insulation of the corporation from undue political interference that distract the organisation.
Okugbawa said the corruption issue in the NNPC, mentioned by the governor, was a problem hindering Nigeria’s growth and development in the oil and gas sector as a whole, adding, “Let the government deal with the corruption in the system, but not to throw away the baby with the bath water.”
He said the NNPC was created by an Act of Parliament in 1977, and is made up of the holding office; subsidiaries and service units and all have been subjected to undue political interference, which hinders its autonomy for effective running and competitiveness in the last six years.
He said: “If you look at the NNPC today, it has been politicised with most of its decisions and operations influenced by political motives and at times, executive fiat. The corporation is so much tied to the apron of the political office holders, but not the technocrats that are at the helm of affairs.”
