“I agree that the NNPC is the ‘oga pata-pata’ of corruption entities in Nigeria. However, it is not necessarily in the privatization of NNPC that you will solve it. It is more in opening things up and making sure you deliver on your aims to make our system a lot more accountable to us the people. NNPC is like the oil zone. Nigeria is way too dependent on oil if you ask me. I would work hard to make sure we come away from that. By doing that you actually also reduce the importance of NNPC to our economy. However privatizing NNPC is something I would have to pay attention to look at the pros and cons of having NNPC in the public hands or private hands. I have not concerned myself so much with it so far. But I am sure that the problem is not necessarily whether it is in public or private hands but it is in the system that it is operating, whether it is allowing the people to see where funding is coming from, how it is being used, how much oil is taken away, who the oil well is going to, how revenues are generated, how they are expended. Those are the problems and you could have the same problem even if NNPC is in private hands.”

Atuejide in an interview with Abang Mercy of Gatefield TV, published on September 17th, 2018

“We depend too much on oil, on how much money Nigeria is making from generating and exporting petroleum products and re-importing finished products. Why don’t we get our refineries working and get our oils refined here so we don’t even have to pay anybody anything?

“Was it not removing subsidy that made fuel N145? So normally subsidy should have been removed and we should have been fine. So, the problem with NNPC is not necessarily being private or public, it is the extremely inefficient system they have introduced in the place and made normal. Start first by uprooting all those issues. You may actually find there is no subsidy being paid to anybody. You may find that it is just a few hundred thousands paid as subsidies and the rest is just imaginary figures they give to us. Until you get there and are seeing clearly you can’t actually tell where the problems are. We know our refineries should be working and our oil getting refined in Nigeria. Dangote is building a new refinery. All those things, why are they not working? Those are the things we should pay attention to and make sure they start working so we can do all our refining in Nigeria and not even have to import any finished product.”

Atuejide in an interview with Abang Mercy of Gatefield TV, published on September 17th, 2018.

“NIP will completely revamp the leadership of the NNPC. We will replace the old NNPC with one which is only interested in the betterment of our people no matter their regions. An NNPC which will think progressively and implement measures which ensure intelligent, environment and community sensitive exploration and exploitation of our crude oil resources. No more directors of NNPC who are barely qualified to stand guard at our children’s schools. No more NNPC directors who were ordained by our corrupt leaders. We will put credible men and women in charge of NNPC affairs, and through them help the companies and communities where crude oil is exploited find peaceful and mutually beneficial ways of co-existing.”

Excerpts from the 2019 Manifesto of the National Interest Party, the party founded by Atuejide and on which platform she is running for president.

Eunice Atuejide

Office

Election