Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party on Wednesday in Kaduna reiterated his plan to privatise the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation(NNPC), if elected president on Feb 23.
Abubakar said if elected President, he would deregulate the NNPC and sell it to Nigerians, the way Obasanjo sold NITEL.
The former Vice President said this at a town hall meeting with ward, local government and state party leaders in the state at the Kaduna Trade Fair Complex, NAN reports
He said that the NNPC had failed to serve the purpose for which it was established in 1977.
According to him, selling-off the Corporation and all the three refineries was the best option for the country, likening it to the sale of Nigerian Telecommunication Limited (NITEL).
Speaking on the sale of NITEL under Obasanjo, Atiku said “Under Obasanjo, NITEL went through several botched sales and management turnaround contracts. First, 51 percent of the shares was sold to a group of investors under the trading name of Investors International London limited.
“The sale was cancelled after the investors failed to pay. Then in 2003, the government approved a management turnaround contract with a firm called Pentascope. The contract was cancelled in 2005 after it became clear Pentascope did not have the adequate resources to run NITEL.
“In 2005, government again offered NITEL to Orascom. This failed again, leading the government to sell it to a subsidiary of Transcorp in 2007.
“The sale was revoked in 2009. In 2014, the firm was sold to NATCOM, a group of investors led by Tunde Ayeni. Ayeni since then has been running it as NTEL.”
Abubakar, further urged the people of Kaduna state to massively vote for the PDP, promising to make education a priority by providing scholarships to all deserving youth and women in the country.
He said that his leadership would address, what he described as alarming insecurity, with killings of innocent Nigerians across all the geopolitical regions.
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