LAGOS: A leading contender in Nigeria’s presidential election next month has pledged to privatise the country’s oil industry, but that’s a promise that might prove hard to keep, some observers say.
Atiku Abubakar, the main opposition party contender, has vowed to break up the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC), which he called a ‘mafia organisation’.
The NNPC and other state-run organisations have been widely criticised as becoming slush funds for successive governments, particularly around election time in the African OPEC state.
Abubakar, who served as vice-president to Olusegun Obasanjo between 1999 and 2007, made his latest remarks at a conference on the economy in Nigeria’s economic capital Lagos last week.
“I said unless we dismantle these mafia organisations, we cannot progress, let’s privatise them,” he said.
“I am committed to these privatisations, as I have said. I swear even if they are going to kill me, I will do it.” Sitting president, Muhammadu Buhari, who is running for a second term in office, made the fight against corruption a keyston e of his first election campaign.
His junior minister for oil, Emmanuel Kachikwu, told AFP: “In terms of corruption, he (Buhari) has done his very best.” But it was Kachikwu himself who in late 2017 denounced what he called the “climate of fear” at the heart of the NNPC since the president appointed one of his close associates, Maikanti Kacalla Baru, as group managing director.
Last April he also spoke out against the state subsidies to cut the cost of petrol for motorists, saying it cost the government US$3.9 billion every year.
In fact, the NNPC, which has total control of distribution, has been accused by many campaigners of overestimating the number of litres used by an exorbitant amount in order to rake back in more money to the government.
“(The) NNPC monopoly on fuel distribution is not an ideal situation and will have to end,” said Kachikwu.
“And then part of the corruption in the area will also end.” But he warned: “If we are not fixing it, we are going bankrupt.” Kachikwu reports directly to Buhari, who as well as being head of state has taken on the oil minister portfolio himself.
Buhari takes much the same line on corruption as his main rival to the presidency, Abubakar.
At an election campaign meeting Wednesday, Buhari promised an overhaul of the NNPC to claw back billions of dollars in looted public funds. — AFP