Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, has said President Bola Tinubu has effectively mortgaged Nigeria’s future to himself, his family and associates to an extent that even after he leaves office, it would be nearly impossible for the nation to break free from his shackles.
Atiku, who was the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate in 2023, compared Tinubu’s integration of his business interests into Lagos’s public enterprises to his efforts at the federal level in a statement yesterday by his media office in Abuja.
Atiku said: “Just as Alpha Beta, Primero, and others act as Tinubu’s proxies in Lagos, managing critical sectors and generating revenue for him and his family, he has begun to replicate this at the federal level.”
He expressed astonishment at the operations of the NNPC and how the government-owned oil company had put its retail arm under the control of OVH, a company in which Oando, led by Wale Tinubu, owns 49 per cent.
The Turaki Adamawa expressed regret that his intention to privatise the NNPC and increase its transparency has been overshadowed by what he describes as criminal hijack of NNPC by corporate cabals around the current president.
He further said, “In October 2022, just five months before the elections, the NNPC Retail controversially announced it had acquired OVH and all its filling stations. NNPCL already had about 550 filling stations across the country but claimed it was enhancing its capacity by acquiring OVH, which had only 94 stations and 100 others leased.
“The NNPC did not disclose the purchase price of OVH or the terms of the acquisition. A Freedom of Information request by Premium Times was also rejected by the NNPC, which claimed to be a private company despite still being government-owned.
“Following this dubious deal, Mele Kyari was controversially retained as NNPC GMD despite his incompetence. Tinubu then appointed his former boss at Mobil, turned ally, Pius Akinyelure, as NNPC Chairman, while he himself took on the role of Minister of Petroleum.”
