WILL NNPC TURN OUT TO BE AN ECONOMIC SABOTEUR UNDER BUHARI'S WATCH?

ZION B-BC   NEWSLETTER.  

(Looking at Nigeria's Political System from a Godly Perspective).

A Publication of the Zion Faith Bible-Believing Church Kpeyegyi, Abuja Nigeria. [VOL. 7. NO 277. 2nd December, 2018.] “…ONLY The Truth, Will Set You   Free! (John.8:32).

WILL NNPC TURN OUT TO BE AN ECONOMIC SABOTEUR UNDER BUHARI'S WATCH?

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), a strategic industrial government infrastructure is no push over because it's crude oil and by-products comprising; premium motor spirit (petrol), kerosene, diesel, lubricants, (engine oil, grease, etc,), dictated Nigeria's economic growth in view of their high and constant demands at home and abroad for over five decades until the advent of the Change mantra!

Crude Oil gained prominence as Nigeria's major foreign exchange earner over the groundnut/millets pyramids of the North, cocoa beans and other farm produce of the South shortly after Nigeria's 30-month-old Civil War when the black gold gushed out of the Niger Delta pipelines in large commercial quantity from the early seventies!

Between then and now, (a period of about forty-eight years), controversies had trailed proceeds which accrued from the mono product because of a deliberate policy of non-accountability process - during the military juntas and now in the fresh attempt at true democracy from 1999!
To date, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), had neither successfully declared its crude oil daily output nor produced a scorecard of a credible forensic audit since its incorporation in 1977! 

In Nigeria, oil exploration is governed by the Petroleum Act, and the right to grant licences is the exclusive preserve of the Minister of Petroleum who co-ordinates all petroleum-related affairs and administers all relevant laws/regulations through the Ministry of Petroleum Resources. This Ministry under his portfolio also supervises activities of all executive organs of the public sector of the oil industry, government interests and investments with other relevant ministries in an advisory capacity.
However the NNPC which supervision falls directly under the purview of the Minister of Petroleum, had always feigned a kind of independence from accountability to either its parent body, the Ministry of Petroleum Resources or the Federal Ministry of Finance in respect of its operational activities, incomes, expenditures, remittances, taxes, and certain financial percentage lawfully granted to the body as running costs! At different times NNPC had been accused of either holding back huge sums un-remitted funds to the Federation Account or non-disclosure of its accounts which are shrouded in secrecy!

When His Royal Highness Sanusi Lamido Sanusi was Governor of Central Bank, he alleged that a sum of USD $49.8 billion dollars was unremitted but after series of investigations, ex-president Jonathan's government agreed that missing fund was $ 20 billion dollars! During that same period in February 2014, it was also alleged that NNPC regularly paid USD $700 million dollars to oil marketers as KEROSINE SUBSIDY on daily basis as against presidential directive!
In view of all of the above discrepancies, NNPC has been severally described as the citadel of outrageous corruption that had defied all genuine efforts to redeem its bad image because covetous politicians of consecutive governments since 1999 had converted the organisation to their Automated Teller Machine (ATM)! They have become super rich and are using illicit funds to destabilize the economy through the Illicit Financial Flow syndrome which has grown to between 70-75% in Nigeria, money-laundering, illegal oil bunkering, oil subsidy scam etc.
NNPC has become an albatross around the nation's neck, because it has not fulfilled its mandate as a major foreign exchange earner for Nigeria as the SIXTH global producer of crude oil and as a result, the Change Government has been under high pressure to faithfully deliver its promises of the dividends of democracy!

CAN THE LOW CAPACITY PERFORMANCES OF THE FOUR REFINERIES UNDER NNPC'S WATCH BE JUSTIFIED? AND HOW COME JUNIOR PETROLEUM MINISTER IBE KACHUKWU NOW RENEGES ON HIS PROMISE TO END FUEL IMPORTATION BY 2019 IN ORDER TO ERASE THE FUEL SUBSIDY SCAM ONCE AND FOR ALL? Will Kachukwu take "a walk" or "take a bow"; now that he could not fulfil his promise?

And now, "OIL MARKETERS" are demanding a whooping sum of N 800 billion naira SUBSIDY ARREARS for fuel products importation which government MUST pay since similar importations would continue into 2019, to avoid ARTIFICIAL FUEL SCARCITY from now into the year of the general elections! And it is common knowledge that some fake oil marketers have been jailed for collecting billions of naira for unimported fuel products with false documents and connivance of some NNPC officials and insiders! NNPC IS NO DOUBT A FERTILE GROUND FOR INSTITUTIONAL CORRUPTION WITH IMPUNITY WHICH MIGHT BECOME INCURABLE WITHOUT SERIOUS URGENT FORENSIC SURGERY!

AND NOW ALHAJI ATIKU ABUBAKAR, PDP'S PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE HOPES TO "PRIVATIZE" NNPC IF HE COULD OCCUPY ASO ROCK VILLA IN 2019! Can Nigerians forget so easily when he and ex- president Olusegun Obasanjo privatized most strategic economic institutions and critical government's movable and immovable assets to themselves and their cronies between 1999-2007 and also freely disbursed mandatory funds which accrued to the Petroleum Trust Development Fund (PTDF), from NNPC, during the same period in question?

IS NNPC MAKING ILLEGAL WITHDRAWALS FROM THE LIQUEFIED NATURAL GAS (NLG)?
NNPC has been accused by the SENATE Committee on GAS of making 22 withdrawals from Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG), Dividend Account to the tune of USD $ 3.1 billion between May 2015 and 2018, and requests it to urgently produce its authorization with back-up documents from both NNPC and Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)!  If it is true, did NNPC possess such right or authority to withdraw such an amount and what did it use the withdrawal to offset? Does it intend to pay the petroleum marketers SUBSIDIES which are being subtly demanded as the president prepares for elections? However, NNPC requests Senate to extend the probe to 1999!

MALABU OIL & GAS COMPANY SCANDAL RE-SURFACES!
The Malabu Oil and Gas Company Scandal took a new dimension when the report from a foreign organisation, Global Witness, and broadcast on BBC, allegedly fingered former President Ebele Jonathan and a former Petroleum Minister, Dan Etete, (owner of Malabu Oil and Gas since 1998), in an illegal oil deal involving two multi-national companies, SHELL and ENI, which allegedly defrauded Nigeria of about USD$ 6 billion dollars in profit in the year 2011!  Others include former MI6 Officers, former senior executives at Shell and Eni Oil Companies who are waiting for an Italian Court  judgement on whether the USD $1.1 billion dollars paid in the controversial Malabu oil deal in Nigeria was used as a bribe to win the licence for the oil block!

Dan Etete, who was Petroleum Minister under late General Sanni Abacha, is standing trial in a French Court for awarding ownership of the lucrative Oil Prospecting Licence, OPL 245, estimated to contain NINE billion barrels of crude oil, to a company he secretly controlled and for using illegal proceeds from the deal to purchase a Speed Boat and Chateau! A court in Milan, is also weighing evidence of how the minister bribed ex-president Ebele Jonathan to cover the fraud! He was alleged to have paid only USD $2 million of the $ 20 million legally required by the State and thereby abused his office as Petroleum Minister!

The report revealed that Shell knew that the deal was illegal but still went ahead to be part of it even though a number of Nigerian officials raised concerns about the scandalous deal! Both companies denied any wrongdoing but maintained that they "acted correctly the purchase of the OPL 245"! Patriotic Nigerians and Global Witness want President Buhari to terminate the oil deal contract described as “sheer act of corruption and betrayal of trust"

It has also been reported that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), has begun moves to extradite ex-Minister of Justice and Attorney General, Mohammed Adoke and eight others believed to be principal actors involved in the scandal to face trial in Nigeria. Nine persons had been charged at the Federal High Court, Abuja since 2001, while a Nigerian and an Italian were sentenced to FOUR years in prison by an Italian Court, for their roles as middlemen! The trial which has spanned almost 20 years is ongoing!

PMB SHOULD ASSERT HIS RIGHTS AS PETROLEUM MINISTER!
President Muhammadu Buhari who is the substantive Minister of Petroleum Resources should take positive steps to counter the fears of his junior minister by ensuring that any decision in respect of continuous importation of FUEL PRODUCTS MUST favour the downtrodden, the TALAKAWAS whose interest he had sworn to protect at all times! NO AVERAGE NIGERIAN IS READY TO PAY ABOVE N145.00 FOR PETROL NEITHER SHOULD HE ALLOW OPPOSITION THUGS AND MISCREANTS TO HI-JACK THE ELECTORAL PROCESS THROUGH SMEAR CAMPAIGN AS THE 2019 GENERAL ELECTIONS GET UNDERWAY!

The President should build on the successes recorded in the ECONOMIC DIVERSIFICATION TO AGRICULTURE, NATURAL SOLID MINERAL RESOURCES, ENTERTAINMENT, TOURISM, FILM INDUSTRY ETC!
Presently, international crude oil price has dropped to below $60 dollars, - but Saudi Arabia, a major global player and OPEC STALWART in the oil and gas industry which recently cut its daily  production with ONE MILLION barrels per day (bpd), believes in a consensus to balance the market. This move would be considered on 6th December, 2018 in Vienna as Nigeria's 2019 Budget estimates, assumptions and projections, including its Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), definitely needs the economic boost! The President should DECLARE A STATE OF EMERGENCY ON NNPC AND THE OIL SECTOR OF THE ECONOMY and get it to conform with its constitutional duties in diligent operations and regular accountability in line with international best practice at all times! A thorough FORENSIC AUDITING OF NNPC ACCOUNTS should be carried out quickly to purge it of all impurities and dross in its system in order to give it a brand new life in tandem with the CHANGE AGENDA of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Government and ensure that MODULAR REFINERIES come on board in 2019!
A STITCH IN TIME SAVES NINE!

Please look forward to more divine revelation in the next edition of Zion B-BC Newsletter as you share this with friends and remain blessed in the Lord. [For weekly access, to this newsletter, log on to:  facebook.com/zionfaithbible.believingchurch or http://www.zfbbc1.blogspot.com, https://www.google.com/+zionfaithbiblebelievingchurch.

If you have not accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Saviour, don’t miss this great opportunity as you pray this prayer: Lord Jesus; I confess that I am a sinner who needs to be saved through the grace of the New Testament of your Blood, shed on the Cross at Calvary; I renounce every sin in my life and accept you as my Lord and Saviour. Please forgive me and write my name in the Book of Life. Amen. If you prayed this prayer, you have been admitted into the family of sons and daughters of God, who are born-again. Congratulations.

I am, yours sincerely, Dr. David B.A. Olufon, Resident Pastor and Editor. 08130669886, 08098194390.  08080243066. g-mail- dvdolufon@gmail.com.