Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mr. Andrew Yakubu has expressed concerns over the negative public perception of the corporation, observing that the trend portends unhelpful consequences for the country’s chances of attracting Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).
Speaking at a dinner in Abuja, Yakubu warned that the oil business cannot thrive without Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), without foreign participation, which is in turn based on the same credibility level that is fast-dwindling due to perception.
“If we continue at this rate, I am going to tell you something that is very bad. I will ask all of you that if you continue to destroy our economy this way, then pray never to give birth to children because those children are coming to suffer the outcome of our terrible destructive attitudes.
“[This is] because it will be difficult for anybody to invest in this country if we continue to destroy our country’s perception. If you are talking of corruption, mention anywhere you don’t have any iota of corruption. But what they do is that you do it but the law will catch up you one”
He admitted that corruption is endemic in the country that a kinsman of his would not understand why the GMD could not influence his daughter’s employment into the corporation, and rather summed it up as blatant refusal to assist the family.
“If that is the situation, if you are there and you are not celebrated back home and you don’t do it, is it NNPC that is corrupt? Then we may need to go for a total national cleansing and deliverance”.
Speaking further, he urged Nigerians to bring forward specific cases of corruption in the NNPC, so that the corporation could address them. He also exonerated his management of alleged involvement in corruption, saying oil production and revenue remittance are monitored by different agencies such as the Nigerian Navy, Nigerian Customs Service, Department of Petroleum Resources and Weight & Measure of Office, the Central Bank of Nigeria and so on.
“It is the NNPC that bears the blame in all Nigerian petroleum related matters”, he lamented. “If there is any specific case, people should bring them out to be addressed instead of blanket condemnation and baseless allegations, which can only tarnish the image of the corporation”.
