Atedo Peterside echoes Gov El’Rufai, says NNPC is Nigeria’s biggest problem
by ebor cletus ralph jr
On Wednesday, NNPC Limited came under fire from Atedo Peterside, a businessman and the creator of Stanbic IBTC Bank Plc, for continuing to “waste” money on CNN commercials.
In response to a report, Peterside said he agreed with Nasir El-Rufai, the governor of Kaduna Status, noting the NNPC’s dire state and emphasised that, despite the company’s recent privatisation, its commercial operations were unaffected.
“I couldn’t agree more with El-Rufai. Little or nothing has changed at NNPC Limited. They should stop wasting our money on CNN adverts in which they praise themselves unconvincingly. If they did anything good, their good works will speak for them,” Peterside noted in the statement.
In August 2022, Peterside had challenged the NNPC to clarify allegations that it dipped its fingers in the federation account in order to announce a profit of N287bn.
Peterside, in a tweet, said, “There is an allegation that NNPC dipped their fingers in the Federation Cookie Jar in order to announce bumper 2020 profits; they should come clean and publish details of all dividends received by them and tell us which ones they recently diverted from the Federation to themselves.”
El-Rufai stated that the Federal Government had failed in the oil and gas industry and should “get out” of the sector on Friday as part of the events planned for the 7th edition of KADINVEST, an annual event organised by the Kaduna State Investment Promotion Agency. He stated that Nigeria’s major issue was NNPCL.
The Governor said that after the Nigerian National Petroleum Company’s commercialization in July 2022, “nothing has changed.”
Even though NNPC Limited’s Group Chief Executive Officer, Mele Kyari, was doing his best, according to him, the company had failed and had no business operating in the industry.
