President Muhammadu Buhari Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, has explained why the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) declared profit.
Recently, Buhari, who doubles as minister for petroleum resources, announced that the NNPC recorded N287 billion profit after tax (PAT) for the year ended December 31, 2020.
Buhari noted that NNPC losses were reduced from N803 billion in year 2018 to N1.7 billion in year 2019 and the eventual declaration of net profit in 2020. The president also claimed that the declaration of profit is the first in the 44-year history of the oil company.
Adesina who stated this in a piece titled ‘How Buhari Broke The Jinx At NNPC’, posted on his Facebook page on Thursday, September 02, 2021 claims the corporation was able to declare a net profit after tax of N287 billion in a COVID-19-hit year because the President did not turn it into a personal purse.
“Well, it happened because perhaps for the first time in the history of the country, and of the NNPC, there is a President who is not using the place like a personal Automated Teller Machine (ATM),” he said while explaining the rationale behind the feat recorded for the first time in over four decades.
“He (Buhari) is not collecting millions upon millions of dollars by fiat, nor is he giving directives for any under-the-table deal. And that President also happens to be the Minister for Petroleum Resources.”
The presidential aide listed some of the steps taken by the management of the NNPC, attributing them to previous remarks by the NNPC Group Managing Director, Mele Kyari.
According to him, the corporation has sustained the publication of its Monthly Financial and Operations Report (MFOR) in the last one and a half years.
The NNPC, Adesina revealed, also took its transparency drive further by publishing its audited financial statement for the 2018 and 2019 financial years on its website.
On the new order of transparency in NNPC, he quoted Kyari as saying President Buhari never made any demand nor asked for anything for himself or any individual, as the minister of petroleum resources.
The President’s spokesman, however, took a swipe at those saying they would sell the corporation prior to the 2019 presidential poll.
“Remember they had said they would sell NNPC before the 2019 elections, which they had thought they would win. They lost. Flat,” he said.
“And the would-be sellers and the prospective buyers were naturally not happy that the oil corporation had made a profit: under Buhari.”
