Off-spec petrol: NGO asks Buhari to replace heads of NMDPRA, NNPC

Youths Arise Undiluted Leadership and Development Initiative (YAULD Initiative), a non-governmental organisation, has asked President Muhammadu Buhari to replace the heads of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Agency (NMDPRA) and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). 

Akharame Lucky, national coordinator of YAULD Initiative, said this on Thursday at a media briefing in Abuja.

The NGO was reacting to the controversy over the recent importation of petrol with methanol content above Nigeria’s specification.

According to Lucky, NNPC’s apology on the matter will not solve the problems Nigerians have encountered since the importation of the off-spec petrol in February.

He also asked that the NNPC and NMDPRA present to the public the findings of their investigation into the importation of the off-spec petrol.

“It is not enough for the NNPC to offer apologies. Would these apologies automatically restore the several automobiles of our fellow citizens that have been damaged by the substandard petroleum product imported into the country?” he asked.

“It is now a matter of national security and overriding public interest for the minister of state for petroleum, Timipre Sylva, the GMD of NNPC and CEO of NMDPRA to present to the public the findings of their investigations into the importation of adulterated petroleum products.

“It is now one month since this crisis started. We demand that President Muhammadu Buhari steps in now and replaces the heads of the NMDPRA and the NNPC.

“One thing is obvious: Using NNPC pensioners as regulators in a sector where NNPC itself operates as a behemoth, cannot possibly bode well for Nigeria.

“The president should also set up an independent panel of inquiry into the circumstances that surrounded the importation of the contaminated petroleum products into the country by the NNPC and its contractors. The GMD of the NNPC has offered no reasonable explanation, proffered no working or workable solution to the protracted scarcity, and appeared totally in a quandary. These generally leave room for loss of faith in government.”

He added that it is “unacceptable” for Buhari, who is the “head public regulator, managing a sensitive part of the economy, to be junketing the globe while our citizens are subjected to so much misery caused by the abdication of its statutory responsibilities”.

He said as the international price of crude increases amid the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, the federal government needs to step up in its efforts to “protect the best interests of Nigerians and shield them from the unexpected”.