Buhari, Atiku Loyalists Clash over Call for NNPC Privatisation

Atiku group attacks FG’s huge subsidy bills claims is baseless, PDP tell Buhari Your performance

Onyebuchi Ezigbo

Ahead of the commencement of campaigns for the 2019 presidential election, supporters of the two frontline contenders, incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, have traded words over policy positions on how to reposition the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).

It was the Buhari group that first attacked the proposal made by the former vicepresident to partially privatise the NNPC.

Atiku, a presidential aspirant on the platform of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), had said he would embark on partial privatisation of the national oil company if he is elected president in the 2019 elections.

But the Buhari Media Organisation (BMO), a media support group for Buhari’s re-election bid, said it found it unpalatable “the texture of Atiku’s proposal at this point in the development trajectory of our country.”

It said the pledge by Atiku to privatise the oil and gas sector, especially the country’s refineries, was callous and anti-people.

The group said it was “rather simplistic for any presidential contender with avowed love of the mass of the Nigerian people to join the advocacy for the sell-off of our national assets, especially the ones that most impact the standard of living of the huge population of Nigeria’s poor and struggling middle class.”

In a statement issued in Abuja by the Coordinator, Austin Braimoh, and Secretary, Cassidy Madueke, the group said it was amazed that “an eminent Nigerian in the class of Atiku would propose the privatisation of the oil and gas sector, inclusive of the refineries when it is obvious that the privatisation of the refineries directly translates to increased price of petroleum products, especially the widely-used petrol with dire consequences on high transport cost aggregating in high inflation rates with massive decline in the standard of living of the people.

“Obviously, Atiku is merely amplifying the long condemned International Monetary Funds (IMF) recommendation for commercial pricing of petroleum products when, in fact, it is established that such products must be socially priced,” the group added.

BMO said Nigerians have resisted “and will continue to resist the IMF and any of the Bretton Woods institutions’ intervention in policy reforms of the national economic template in the understanding that these policies are antipeople in orientation and outlook.”

Responding, the Atiku group known as the All-Atiku Support Group (AASG), slammed Buhari’s men for displaying ignorance of modern economic policies.

The group said other oil producing countries like Malaysia, Brazil and now Saudi Arabia have privatised their national oil companies.

The All-Atiku Support Group blamed the criticism by the BMO of the proposal by former vice-president to privatise some aspects of the oil and gas sector as a display of poor knowledge about modern economic management.

In a statement signed by its Coordinator, Mr. Oladimeji Fabiyi, the Atiku group said the Buhari administration was least qualified to pass a remark about ideas geared towards modernising and optimising the operations of the Nigerian oil and gas sector, and indeed of any other sector of the economy.

It said the Buhari-led administration had done nothing to build new refineries or to revamp the existing ones it met on ground, adding that it amounted to hypocrisy for someone who campaigned against payment of subsidy to turn round to approve payments of huge sums as subsidy while at the same time raising fuel prices.

It said the contradiction inherent in the position of Buhari on subsidy was evident for Nigerians to see.

“After saying there was no subsidy, to making Nigerians buy fuel at the highest price in the history of this country without palliative or cushioning effects to Nigerians and now paying over N1 trillion on subsidy

“For an administration that campaigned heavily about jettisoning subsidy regime and ‘stabilising global oil prices’ coming out to criticise a workable idea to liberalise the country’s oil and gas sector is unfortunate to say the least,” the statement said.

The Atiku group noted that while the operations and revenue of the Nigerian oil giant has been shrouded in secrecy for past years, it was worrisome that a group such as the BMO would employ cheap blackmail to cover up the operations of the NNPC, saying such tendencies were not in line with the change that Nigerians expected.

“What the BMO has done by its criticism of Atiku’s proposal is to further expose its lack

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