‘Buhari not using NNPC like personal ATM’ — Femi Adesina speaks on N287bn net profit

Femi Adesina, media adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari, says the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) declared a net profit in 2020 because the president “did not use it as his personal Automated Teller Machine (ATM)”.

Last week, Buhari, who doubles as minister for petroleum resources, announced that the NNPC recorded N287 billion profit after tax (PAT) for the year ended December 31, 2020.

Buhari noted that NNPC losses were reduced from N803 billion in year 2018 to N1.7 billion in year 2019 and the eventual declaration of net profit in 2020.

The president also claimed that the declaration of profit is the first in the 44-year history of the oil company – a claim TheCable fack checked to be inaccurate.

According to the corporation’s 2019 financial statement, the group posted a profit of N111.59 billion in its 2017 operations.

In an article titled; ‘How Buhari Broke The Jinx At NNPC,’ released on Thursday, Adesina said the development occurred because Buhari refused to operate NNPC like an Automated Teller Machine (ATM).

“Well, it happened because perhaps for the first time in the history of the country, and of the NNPC, there is a President who is not using the place like a personal Automated Teller Machine (ATM),” the article reads.

“He (Buhari) is not collecting millions upon millions of dollars by fiat, nor is he giving directives for any under-the-table deal. And that President also happens to be the Minister for Petroleum Resources.”

Adesina quoted Mele Kyari, the group managing director of NNPC, as saying that Buhari “has never made any demand of us, asked for a single thing for himself or any individual”.

He said the corporation also sustained the publication of its Monthly Financial and Operations Report (MFOR) in the last one and a half years.