Afenifere Youths has expressed concern over massive importation of fuel by the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL) despite the repair of Port Harcourt and Warri Refineries.
Speaking at a press conference in Lagos on Monday, the convener of the group, Isijola Shola, said the NNPCL, despite its claim of having bounced back, has continued to import refined petroleum products.
It said: "As a refresher, NNPCL promised Nigerians that the perennial petrol queues that brought the country to its knees in the past would become a thing of the past but has failed to fulfill the promise.
"It premised this assurance on the maintenance it was carrying out on the four publicly owned refineries.
"Nigerians believed these promises in the expectation that they came from the leadership of what should have been a world-class organisation populated by persons of honour.
"These expectations were shattered. NNPC did not meet up with the timeframes it gave Nigerians even after misapplying millions of dollars in repair costs.
"The corporation became adept at telling Nigerians cock-and-bull stories at shifted and missed one deadline after another. In this period, citizens languished in the fuel queues while losing valuable funds to buying cutthroat black market petrol.
"While this ugly situation lasted, the country bled trillions of naira in payment for phantom subsidies to faceless entities and individuals.
"Those familiar with the industry rightly predicted that the Mele Kyari-led NNPCL with his associates have become too addicted to petrol subsidies to allow the practice to end without a fight.
"In January this year alone, NNPCL superintended the importation of 489,065 Metric Tonnes of Petrol and Diesel of which it was directly responsible for 72.25% of the volume, which means it is responsible for three-quarters of all imported refined petroleum products this year.
"In the last quarter of last year, that is, from October 1 to December 31 2024, importation stood at a combined 3,638,118.41 metric Tonnes for petrol and diesel, for which the percentage of NNPC importation is 68.77%, which is almost two-thirds of what was imported. In this period, NNPCL was responsible for 41 shipping, and this is not counting those done by proxies like Matrix Oil.
"To better understand what is happening here, one needs to recall that this surge in the importation of refined products was at a time NNPCL claimed it had restreamed Port Harcourt and Warri refineries and was even exporting semi-refined products to Dubai.
"Additionally, this was the same period Dangote Refinery was looking for off-takers for its petrol that it eventually exported to other countries. Some pundits have suggested that NNPCL likely re-imported the exported Dangote petrol, but we believe this is stretching it far.
"We have also noted how the naira lost significant value within this period that NNPCL was massively importing petrol while claiming otherwise.
"Ordinarily, we would ask Mele Kyari and NNPCL to explain what has happened to make Nigeria’s petroleum importation surge at a time when they are touting local refining capacity.
"But we know that such demand would be met with indifference or more lies. We have lost confidence in the capacity of NNPCL or its leadership to do the right thing.
"It is for this reason that we urge President Bola Tinubu to safeguard his legacy and not allow the greed of an inherited appointee to rubbish his avowal of far-reaching reforms.
"Mr President would serve the interest of Nigerians by immediately ordering an independent probe of how and why he was misled about the NNPCL’s refining capacity.
"The probe should include but not be limited to finding out what happened to the funds claimed to have been spent on fixing the refineries, why NNPCL continues to import what it claims to have started producing locally, the source of the forex used for the importation from October last year to date, the identities of the signatories to the NNPCL imports including a directive for the nation’s anti-graft agencies to investigate them as individuals and corporate entities, and what has been happening to the products that were supposedly locally refined.
"Additionally, to prevent interference, we urge President Tinubu to place Mele Kyari and his associates at the NNPCL on suspension pending the outcome of the investigation.
"Anything short of this will leave Nigerians no option but to conclude that Mr President is in on what NNPCL has done to Nigerians."
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