Brave Dickson
Activists from the Niger Delta region of the country have warned the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) under the leadership of its Group Managing Director, Mele Kyari to stop lying to Nigerians over figures of daily fuel consumption.
The activists who said this through the National President of the Niger Delta Activists Forum, Success Jack told our correspondent that NNPC is lying to Nigerians in order to outrageously increase the price of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS).
He said, “It is both shocking and disturbing, the recent revelations made by the Group Managing Director of NNPC, Mr Mele Kyari on the sharp, sudden and very dramatic rise of our national daily consumption volume of premium motor spirit (PMS) across the country.
“You would recall that in the 2017 NNPC official report, the corporation had declared an average daily PMS consumption volume of twenty eight million (28m litres) per day while; Mr Henry Obih (NNPC COO, downstream) in the presence of other COOs and top oil and gas sector leaders was declaring forty eight million litres for the year 2016 and fifty million litres (50m litres) for the year 2017, during the Nigerian oil and gas conference and exhibition held in Abuja.
“Nigerians would also recall that true to Kyari’s seeming inaccuracies, the corporation quickly adjusted the daily consumption figures from twenty eight million litres(28m litres) to tally with Obih’s position of fifty million litres (50m litres) between December 2017 and March 2018.
“This was the addition of a massive thirty two million litres over night to establish an insane sixty million litres per day consumption volume of PMS in Nigeria. God save us.
“The Mele Kyari led NNPC has further wounded us by this heavy declaration, which in essence means that Nigeria now pays at least five billion naira(#5b) on daily basis for petroleum subsidy, amounting to one hundred and fifty billion naira monthly. And we are not told if this amount excludes bridging cost.
“It is the opinion of many Nigerians that this drama is aimed at greedily pocketing more profits from increasing global oil price, instead of remitting it to FAAC, thereby justifying reasons for increment in pump price of PMS to the detriment of the poor Nigerian masses, soonest.
“It is also very important for us as Nigerians, to interrogate volumes of daily truck out of PMS from the depots as reeled by PPPRA and juxtapose it with available
DPR certified cargo discharged certificates of imported petroleum products.”
The activists therefore vowed to resist any attempts by the Kyari led NNPC to hike the price of PMS in the country.