Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party Party, has commended the federal government for commercialising the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
Reacting to the the official unveiling of the Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited in a tweet on Wednesday, the former vice president noted, however, that though the move was a step in the right direction, it is still far from what he envisaged when he promised to privatise the corporation.
Atiku recalled that the All Progressives Congress attacked him when he made a case for the privatisation of the NNPC, but the same APC government has taken an initiative in the same direction.
“I had in 2018 made public my plans to reform the NNPC to make it more profitable, transparent and efficient. The APC-led government denigrated me for my patriotic vision,” Atiku said.
“But today, I am happy to note that the same government has taken a tentative step along the lines of the suggestions that I had made. It is a step in the right direction, but we are still far from what I had envisaged.
“I hope I’ll have the opportunity to complete the process of turning the NNPC into a genuinely world-class company in the mould of NLNG, Aramco of Saudi Arabia and Petrobras of Brazil, where Nigerians and institutions will invest in.”