The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) on Friday replied the candidate of All Progressives Congress (APC), Muhammadu Buhari, saying the latter did not express the truth with his allegation of fraud against the organisation.
Buhari, in his acceptance speech minutes after he was elected as the APC presidential flagbearer on Thursday, had promised to make NNPC accountable.
Apart from being a former Head of State, Buhari had also served as the head of the Petroleum Trust Fund, and many think he has knowledge of the activities in the oil sector. Moreover, Nigerians had often lamented the secrecy and lack of accountability in the NNPC.
But in a statement issued by the corporations Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Mr. Ohi Alegbe, the organisation accused Buhari of being mischievous.
Alegbe said: “It is sad that Gen. Buhari, one of the founding fathers of the NNPC, who has had a taste of the virulent but false allegations deliberately concocted to cast the corporation and the public sector management of the nation’s oil and gas industry in bad light, would be the one to allege that NNPC runs two sets of account books ‘one for public consumption and another for insiders.
“We consider Gen. Buhari’s allegation in bad taste as it is nothing but a deliberate political mischief calculated to cast the corporation in opprobrium, all in a bid to shore up his political capital.
“We find it difficult to understand how a former Head of State who has also served as Minister of Petroleum Resources could believe that NNPC keeps two sets of account books to perpetrate fraud, knowing that NNPC is the most audited and scrutinised agency in the country.
“Is it possible for the accounting discrepancies insinuated by Gen. Buhari to escape the attention of such internationally acclaimed auditors?
“And in any case, why would an alleged fraudulent corporation keep two sets of accounting books knowing that such could be used as evidence against it?
“We hereby state emphatically that NNPC neither keeps two sets of account books nor is aware of the existence of such as the corporation is run in line with international best practice.”
