By Chibuike Nwabuko
Abuja (Sundiata Post) – The Executive Vice President, Business Services, Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Ltd, Danladi Inuwa has said that the company is working to ensure energy security in the nation.
He said in achieving this, the company is carrying out numerous programs in terms of gas to power, gas to industries and of course the Petroleum product supply. Parts of these three key areas are being focused on to ensure we deliver on energy security for the country, he added.
Inuwa disclosed this on Wednesday at the beginning of a two-day sensitization and awareness workshop organised in collaboration with Tedran Consulting on the theme : :Understanding our National Oil Company (NNPC Ltd) Post Petroleum Industry Act” aimed at enlightening Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and the general public on the activities of the corporation in line with it’s mandate.
According to him, NNPC Ltd is focusing on monetizing our gas and that this has given rise to some of the key projects the company has embarked upon like the AVJ project which is going to transmit gas from Ajaokuta to Kaduna and Kano with associated power plant going on across the country.
The Executive Vice President also said that the another focus of the Company is to spur economic development in Nigeria stressing that it is believed that providing the gas to power and to the industry, the company wi be able to deliver on that key mandate.
He noted that as a limited liability company, the equity component in the Joint Venture Assets have been transfered to NNPC Ltd and their obligations to the country is the payment of royalties, taxe and dividends to the federal government.
Inuwa, who absolved the NNPC Ltd of blame concerning queues, reminded that the subsidy has been shut down on behalf of the Federal government by the company. He however stressed that long queues seen in some states in the country was caused by factors such as price difference, profiteering by oil marketets and distribution channels.
On his part, Mr Olalekan Edwards, President General of “The Natives”, said their goal is to begin to understand what NNPC. Ltd is doing and expose the saboteurs amongst them as well as to change the narratives from being protesters to being participants in their own affairs.
Edwards said that what his group – The Natives is interested in, is that the people who used to be in the background should now come forward because they are actually the owners of the country.
Sundiata Post recalls that The Natives is the organisation that pulls together different communities and their local problems, problems that just want one solution. The group is made up of faith-based groups, student bodies, Civil Society Organisations and their goal is not to get to the streets anymore.
On what the program is set up to achieve, Mr Peter Okoye, Partner Tedran Consulting said it is a sensitization and awareness workshop on the new NNPC Ltd, its structure and operations.He noted that the signing into law of Petroleum Industrial Act by President Muhammadu Buhari in August 2021 is making a lot of changes in the Petroleum sector in Nigeria and one of the mandate of that Act was to convert the NNPC from a public company to a profit oriented Incorporated company which has been done.
In his words: Today, NNPC is am Incorporated company called limited and it’s fully owned by Nigerian government. Due to the misconceptions and misinformation that are coming when such changes like this occur, people get rumours that may not be true pictures of reality. We sat down and said, it is good for us to have a forum where we can interact with the CSOs to be able to bring them to speed, let them understand what the changes, how these changes are going to affect the oil industry in Nigeria, what are their contribution to see that the whole objective of the PIB is achieved and that, at the end of the day, Nigerians should win.
