The Presidency addressed several issues last Wednesday as the Special Adviser to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on Information and Strategy, Mr. Bayo Onanuga picked the microphone to give perspectives to certain developments. One of the issues he addressed was the lingering feud between the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL), and Dangote Refineries Limited.
Onanuga said that President Tinubu would not intervene in the feud because the two entities “operate independently in a deregulated market.” According to Onanuga, the Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) field has been deregulated, just as Dangote is a private company. The NNPCL is a limited liability company, he said.
In the loaded statement, the presidential adviser was hinting Nigerians why the President cannot dabble into the huge, but confusing feud between Dangote Refineries and NNPCL, over the pricing of petroleum products in the country. The presidential adviser and Nigerians are not oblivious to the implications of his statement. First, a lot of hope had been invested in the Dangote Refineries by Nigerians, who had concluded that its coming on stream would yield them cheaper fuel and help end the perennial fuel scarcity that kept the pumps at the filling stations dry for most of the months.
But as the refinery was about to fag off its full operations, officials of the refinery, the NNPC and its subsidiaries started singing some music with disparaging tunes. Accusations upon accusations were rampaging i.
