Former Emir of Kano Sanusi Lamido Sanusi said there should be more accountability from the Nigeria National Petroleum Company NNPC as the country battles with loss of oil revenues due illegal siphoning of crude.
Sanusi, a one time Central Bank of Nigeria governor was speaking Saturday in Kaduna at the KadInvest, an annual event organised by the Kaduna State Investment Promotion Agency. He decried the spate of oil theft and the seeming ineffectiveness of the NNPC to function as a limited company.
He described as unbelievable the claim by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited that Nigeria consumes 66 million litres of fuel daily.
“Are we drinking the petrol?”
“NNPC tells us officially that we are consuming 66 million litres per day. We are consuming more than Indonesia, Pakistan, Egypt, Cote d’Ivoire, more than Kenya.
“In 2019 officially, we were importing 40 million litres per day. In 2022, officially, we are importing 66 million per day. In three years, we have increased our petrol consumption by 50%. Please tell me, is it the population? Is it the number of cars? Just ask yourself if it makes sense that in three years you increase your consumption of petrol by 50%,” he said.
Continuing, Sanusi said, “Nigeria has continued to be a rentier state. It does not exist for development but as a sight of rent, and extraction to make those who control the state rich to turn them into billionaires overnight.
He noted that Nigeria can’t keep pushing the brink but must come back and address the issues at hand so that future generations won’t suffer.
“Let me ask you: what do you think we are leaving our children behind (with)? A mountain of debt. Every generation wants to leave a legacy so that our children and grandchildren will be praying for us and ask God for mercy on us, not cursing us.
“You leave them with a mountain of debt, you have not educated them, money that should be put into their education, into their healthcare, even assuming this fuel subsidy is genuine, we have taken that money to give ourselves cheap petrol. We are borrowing to enjoy cheap petrol so that our children will pay that debt.
“We see the problem and we are going to continue. I’m sorry for the next president who comes in June and says I’m removing fuel subsidies on day one. I don’t know what kind of political stability you’ll have,” Sanusi stated.
